{"id":51520,"date":"2026-07-08T09:51:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T09:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=51520"},"modified":"2026-07-08T09:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T09:54:11","slug":"how-to-enable-audio-video-thumbnail-preview-in-ubuntu-26-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2026\/07\/how-to-enable-audio-video-thumbnail-preview-in-ubuntu-26-04\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Enable Audio \/ Video Thumbnail Preview in Ubuntu 26.04"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Missing the small image preview for your audio and videos files in file manager? Here’s how to re-enable this function in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS<\/b>.<\/p>\n

As you probably know, the thumbnail images for audio and video files in the previous Ubuntu releases are generated by Totem video player.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

audio and video thumbnails are handled by totem video player in Ubuntu 24.04<\/p><\/div>\n

GNOME, the default Ubuntu desktop, since version 49 introduced Showtime to replace Totem as the default video player. It however lacks the audio\/video thumbnailer<\/a> solution.<\/p>\n

As a workaround, the gst-thumbnailer<\/a> was added as a GNOME Core project, which is responsible for generating thumbnails for audio and video files.<\/p>\n

Ubuntu 26.04 is the first Ubuntu release that ships with the gst-thumbnailer<\/code> library. But if you installed Ubuntu 26.04 with the “Default selection<\/i>” mode that contains only basic utilities, then the thumbnailer library is excluded!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

audio\/video thumbnails work after installed gst-thumbnails library<\/p><\/div>\n

This is a bug as someone reported it here<\/a>. And, it’s marked to be fixed in the next Ubuntu 26.04.1 planned to be released next month.<\/b><\/p>\n

Enable (fix) Audio \/ Video Thumbnail in Ubuntu 26.04<\/h3>\n

Without waiting for the next point release, you may manually install the gst-thumbnailer<\/code> library to enable the thumbnail previews.<\/p>\n

To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T<\/code> to open up a terminal window. Then, run the commands below one by one:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • First, refresh package cache:\n
    sudo apt update<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  • Then, install the thumbnailer packages:\n
    sudo apt install gst-video-thumbnailer gst-audio-thumbnailer<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    \"\"<\/p>\n
    After that, run the commands below to clear thumbnail caches:<\/p>\n
    rm -rf ~\/.cache\/thumbnails\/<\/pre>\n
    Finally, re-open your file manager to see if the thumbnail preview works.<\/p>\n
    If you prefer<\/b>, you may install the ffmpegthumbnailer<\/code> package instead which also works and supports even more file formats.<\/p>\n
    sudo apt install ffmpegthumbnailer<\/pre>\n
    However, as mentioned above Ubuntu 26.04.1 will ship gst-thumbnailer<\/code> by default. If you want to use the non-default one, then you may try moving (or coping) the desired .thumbnailer<\/code> from \/usr\/share\/thumbnailers<\/code> directory to ~\/.local\/share\/thumbnailers<\/code>, which however works for current user only.<\/p>\n
    \"\"<\/p>\n
    Also, remember to clear caches to apply changes.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    Missing the small image preview for your audio and videos files in file manager? Here’s how to re-enable this function in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. As you probably know, the thumbnail images for audio and video files in the previous Ubuntu releases are generated by Totem video player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2397],"class_list":["post-51520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-howtos","tag-ubuntu-26-04"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}