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Solved
Image previews in Explorer only showing the compressed preview for local files on Windows
Hello. Since the big Dropbox update in February 2025 I have been experiencing issues. I mainly use Dropbox in Windows file explorer, not on the Dropbox App / Site. I have Dropbox for Windows on 3 sep...
Hello, Thomas from the Engineering team here! We're actively working on resolving this issue and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Definitely understand the frustration here.
One escape hatch here is to opt out of the update: https://help.dropbox.com/installs/dropbox-for-windows#How-to-optout-of-the-Dropbox-for-Windows-update
This will unfortunately mean you will have to go through the process of re-syncing again, but this should be a one-time thing (as long as you stay logged in) and will not be required every time we roll out a new Dropbox version.
Just for anyone else tuning into this thread, I did reach out to the Dropbox support team, and this was their reply:
"Hi Beau,
Thank you for reaching out to Dropbox Support. My name is Vincent and I am more than happy to assist you.
From my understanding you’ve come across an issue with file previews.
The issue you reported is something our development team is currently aware of and investigating further. The issue appears to be related to an interaction between the Sync feature and OS file explorer behavior as we attempt to sync previews of the files. We do appreciate your feedback and context on how this affects your particular use-case as we are always working on ways to improve the Dropbox application and its features.
We do not have a current timeline I can provide on improvements to this behavior. I would recommend ensuring that you are consistently updating to the latest Dropbox version available to take advantage of any performance improvements as they are made available.
On Windows, restarting the computer will relaunch the Windows File Explorer.
If the issue does persist, as a current workaround you could preview any of the files in these folders on Dropbox.com.
Thank you and please let me know if you have any other questions.
Kind Regards,
Vincent
Dropbox Customer Support"
So basically they are aware of the problem, but there is no timeline as to an official fix as of yet. This is very disheartening to hear. Restarting Windows does not help. Hopefully Dropbox can roll out some updates / fixes for this issue, but if the problem still persists in a few months, I may have to move my files and membership to a different service. I currently have about 2 TB of data in Dropbox, so I am loathe to make a change, but the current workflow is abhorrent for me.
