Disable Mac 10.9 Finder Thumbnail Preview by Command

Finder thumbnail previews are useful but can slow down the Finder browsing experience when navigating lots of folders. Disabling Finder thumbnail previews is one of the recommended actions to mitigate slow browsing with SMB shares and slow-performing AFP shares. However, disabling thumbnail previews on network shares has the added complication of .ds_stores files.

This article details how to set the default thumbnail preview settings by command for all the view options to off.

Edit the Finder thumbnail preview by command line

The thumbnail preview setting are contained in the com.apple.finder.plist as nested property list items. There is a thumbnail preview setting for each of the 4 view options – List, Icon, Column and CoverFlow. As the dictionary keys are nested, the Default command cannot be used so PlistBuddy is required. See the various commands below.

Note – Using the delete command first can improve the success of editing keys with PlistBuddy.

# Delete the existing cover-flow preview setting

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettings:showIconPreview\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Delete the existing icon preview setting

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Delete the existing list preview setting

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Delete the existing column preview setting

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the cover-flow preview setting to off

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the icon preview setting to off

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the list preview setting to off

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
# Reset the column preview setting to off

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/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails bool false\' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

10.9+ Preference Caching

PlistBuddy is not preference cache-aware so the prefs/plist must be cleared and the Finder restarted for the change to enforced. Alternatively, run your thumbnail preview change at logout.

# Delete prefs/plist cache
################################
killall cfprefsd

# Restart the Finder
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killall Finder

Disable Mac 10.9+ Finder Thumbnail Preview by Command

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# Disable Icon preview for all views

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UserList=\"$(ls -1 /Users | grep -vi .localized | grep -vi Shared | grep -vi Deleted | grep -vi guest | grep -vi root)\"

for u in $UserList ;

do

# Delete the existing cover-flow preview setting

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettings:showIconPreview\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Delete the existing icon preview setting

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Delete the existing list preview setting

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Delete the existing column preview setting

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Delete StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the cover-flow preview setting to off

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the icon preview setting to off

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the list preview setting to off

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

# Reset the column preview setting to off

################################

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \'Add StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails bool false\' /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;

chown $u /Users/$u/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

done