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Custom Preview Images

Create custom preview images (thumbnails) for your files and folders.

Custom Previews Demo

  • Custom folder icons for unique folders.
  • Custom thumbnails for external website links (url files).
  • Custom video thumbnails (if you can't use FFMpeg).
  • Custom PDF thumbnails (if you can't use ImageMagick).
  • Thumbnails for huge panorama images (if they can't be created automatically).
  • Artist or track image for audio files.
  • Override default thumbnail for special images.
  • Animated GIF thumbnails.
  • Programmatically create and maintain your own thumbnails.
  • Create global custom thumbnails for different file types.

Creating custom preview images​

To create a custom preview image for any file or folder, simply create an image with corresponding file name, and drop it into the same dir as the original. For example, if you have a file filename.ext create a corresponding preview image _files_filename.ext.jpg.

For example, for the following files:

foldername
image.png
document.pdf

Simply create corresponding file names that start with _files and end with the preview extension:

_files_foldername.png
_files_image.png.jpg
_files_document.pdf.jpg

You can use any image format png gif or jpg for custom preview images.

Limitations

If you rename, delete or move files into a new location, you will need to update your custom previews accordingly. Files Gallery will not automatically manage your custom preview images.

Global custom preview images​

You can also create global custom preview images for different file types, which is useful if you want to create your own custom file or folder icons. Simply create storage dir _files/previews and include preview images for any extension or mime type. You can target files by extension ext.jpg or by specific mime type mime.jpg.

_files
└── previews
    └── video.png
    └── folder.jpg
    └── text.jpg
    └── pdf.jpg

In the above examples, we have a custom video.png thumbnail for all video files with video/* mime type, folder.jpg to replace all folder icons, text.jpg to replace all text files with text/* mime type and pdf.jpg for all PDF files.

FAQ​

  • How large should custom preview images be?
    Custom preview images don't have a specific size requirement, but it's a good idea to target 480 px, as this is the default for large preview images.
  • What image formats can I use?
    You can use any image format png gif or jpg for custom preview images.
  • How to assign folder preview images?
    Custom preview images should not be confused with folder preview images, which are images from inside each dir, loaded as a small preview image on top of the folder icon.
  • How to create external website links?
    Simply create a text file yourlink.url with the Internet Shortcut syntax:
[InternetShortcut]
URL=https://www.files.gallery/