What is thumbs.db and How to Delete thumbs.db

We all are always worried about viruses. Usually a virus can damage files, folders. So, we always try to clean our computer, by manually deleting some selected files or folders, which we understand that those are viruses or may be harmful and or using anti virus. I was always considered and treated thumbs.db as a virus because it use to create thumbs.db  file automatically as soon as delete the file. However there are still many people who are new to computer world and may treat it as virus or as a strange act.

What is thumbs.db file?

Thumbs.db is always created on an image file or image folder. Thumbs.db is a thumbnail cache file which is used to store thumbnail images for Windows Explorer’s thumbnail view. Actually thumbs.db speeds up the image display as the smaller images do not need to be recalculated every time the user views the folder.

Basically, when you view images folder in thumbnail, you would see images showing in small preview (Thumbnail).This thumbnail information is saved in thumbs.db file in the same folder. So, next time when you visit the same image folder in thumbnail, you would see thumbnail images displaying very fast. Thumbnail cache file speed up the showing of thumbnails when you are viewing a folder in thumbnail view.

Note: The Thumbnail cache file is a hidden file. Go to My computer >> Tools >> Folder options >> Go to View Taband put a tick on “Show hidden files and folder”.

Disadvantages of thumbs.db:

Though it seems to be very useful and helpful but may not be good for computer with low disk space. thumbs.db file takes up disk space, although the file size or space taken by thumbnail cache will be small. Suppose for 5-6 images in a folder may create thumbs.db of 7-8 kb. Folder with 500-700 images may create thumbs.db with file size of 800-900kb(Approx 1mb).If your pc have lots of such thumbs.db file on hard disk which have low disk space, you can save some valuable space on your hard disk by removing the thumbnail cache file (thumbs.db).

You might have seen when we remove or delete this thumbs.db file, it automatically created again. So, we need to turn off this thumbnail cache feature.

How to Remove thumbs.db

Open My Computer or any folder

Click on Tools (on the top and on menu bar)

Click on Folder Options. If you don’t find Folder Options, it may be deleted by virus. You can Restore Folder Options in Tool Menu, Disabled by Virus.

Go to view tab

Put a tick on “Do Not Cache thumbnails”, click Apply and Ok.

From this thumbs.db will never be created. But there are some thumbs.db files are on your computer those are already created. To delete all thumbs.db file from hard disk, we would search the files and then delete those files from hard disk.

Go to start, Search

Click on “All files and Folder”

On the “All or part of the file name” box write thumbs.db and on the Look in box select all “Local Hard Drives” and click on search.

You would see lots of thumbs.db files. Select all files and delete all.

By Turning off the thumbnail cache feature will not affect viewing in thumbnail. This Tip is handy for computer with low hard disk space.

                                                                            Source: ♠ Hacker Is Better ♠