How to show the Preview Pane for File Explorer in Windows 10

File Explorer in Windows 10 displays several file layouts, such as descriptions, tiles, text, and different icon sizes. The file snapshot gives you a preview of the file when you choose one of the icon size formats like large icons or extra large icons. This overview is especially intended for image files, e.g. PNG or JPG. A common preview thumbnail is not displayed for other file formats.

There are three types of panes in File Explorer:

• Navigation pane,
• Preview pane and
• Details pane.

In this article, we will walk you through the process of showing the File Explorer preview pane in Windows 10.

Show the preview pane for File Explorer in Windows 10

Using the Preview panes in Windows 10 File Explorer, you can preview a file without opening it.

To view the file explorer preview pane in Windows 10, follow this step-by-step procedure.

Open File explorer by clicking on the icon in the task bar.

When you open the File explorer, you will see four different tabs at the top of the screen.

Click it View tab as highlighted in the image above.

As soon as you click on the View tab, you will see that a ribbon will appear like this.

Now click on the Preview pane ribbon as highlighted in the image above.

When you click on the Preview pane , this pane will be activated.

Now whatever file you have selected, its contents will appear in the Preview pane and you can see it without opening it.

Here’s how an image file appears.

By following this procedure, you can display the Preview pane of File Explorer in Windows 10 and view the contents of the file without opening them.

I hope you find this tip useful.