Disable Mac Finder Icon Previews by Command
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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 settings 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.
- Using the delete command first can improve the success of editing keys with PlistBuddy.
- 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.
Disable Mac 10.12 – 10.14 Finder Thumbnail Preview by Command
#!/bin/sh
#by Gumptiontech
#iconpreviewlog=/var/log/iconpreview.log
#exec >> $iconpreviewlog 2>&1
loggedInUser=`/bin/ls -l /dev/console | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $3 }'`
################################
# Disable Icon previews
################################
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete DesktopViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:showIconPreview' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Delete StandardViewSettings:GalleryViewSettings:showIconPreview' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add DesktopViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails bool false' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:showIconPreview bool false' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add StandardViewSettings:GalleryViewSettings:showIconPreview bool false' /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist;
chown $loggedInUser /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
################################
# Delete prefs/plist cache
################################
killall cfprefsd
sleep 1
################################
# Restart the Finder
################################
killall Finder
################################
# Check icon preview settings
################################
echo $loggedInUser
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist -c 'print :DesktopViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview'
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist -c 'print :StandardViewOptions:ColumnViewOptions:ShowIconThumbnails'
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist -c 'print :StandardViewSettings:ExtendedListViewSettingsV2:showIconPreview'
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist -c 'print :StandardViewSettings:IconViewSettings:showIconPreview'
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist -c 'print :StandardViewSettings:ListViewSettings:showIconPreview'
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist -c 'print :StandardViewSettings:GalleryViewSettings:showIconPreview'
exit 0
