How to Enable or Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview in Windows 11 or 10?

Windows 11/10 comes with many features, and out of those, Taskbar Thumbnail Preview is one of the most helpful and interesting functions. Taskbar Thumbnail Preview displays a small image of the open windows or programs when you hover over the application icon on the taskbar.

With the default configuration of Windows 11 or 10, the taskbar thumbnail preview remains enabled with a predefined hover time set to half a second. Once you hover on the thumbnail preview that pops up, you can see the preview of the opened window in full screen without clicking on it. That means while working on another program, you can have a glance at another opened window without actually switching to another program or window.

Suppose we have opened and left two File Explorer windows and now working on the Google Chrome browser. When we hover the mouse over the File Explorer icon on the Taskbar, it will pop up two tiny previews of each of the File Explorer windows. We can quickly select any of those to activate.

Indeed, the Taskbar Thumbnail Preview feature has been convenient, but some Windows users want to disable this feature because of the increased number of accidents occurring when the mouse hovers over a taskbar and unintentionally opens an unwanted program. If you are one of those Windows users who want to disable the Taskbar Thumbnail Preview on Windows 11 or 10, this gearupwindows post will help you.

There are at least two ways through which you can turn on or turn off the Taskbar Thumbnail Preview feature on Windows 10. These are the following:-

1. Using Performance Options
2. Through Local Group Policy Editor

How to Enable or Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview using Performance Options?

Perhaps this is the easiest way to turn on or turn off the Taskbar Thumbnail Preview feature of Windows 11/10. Perform the following steps to do the same:-

Step 1. Access the Run dialog box by pressing the Windows logo + R keys simultaneously.

Step 2. In the Run box, type SystemPropertiesPerformance and press Enter from the keyboard to open the Performance Options window.

Step 3. In the Performance Options window that opens, navigate to the Visual Effects tab.

Step 4. Now, check or uncheck the following to enable or disable the Taskbar Thumbnail Preview feature in Windows 11/10:-

• Enable Peek
• Save taskbar thumbnail previews
• Show thumbnails instead of icons

Step 5. Click Apply.

Step 6. Click OK.

Step 7. Reboot your computer or laptop to apply the changes.

How to Enable or Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview through Local Group Policy Editor?

Using Local Group Policy Editor, you can also enable or disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview on Windows 11/10 PC. Perform the following recommended steps:-

Step 1. Open Local Group Policy Editor.

Step 2. In the Local Group Policy Editor window, navigate to the following path from the left side pane:-

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar

Step 3. On the right side pane of Start Menu and Taskbar, look for the policy name “Turn off Taskbar Thumbnails” and double-click on it to open its settings.

Step 4. Select Enabled.

Step 5. Click Apply.

Step 6. Click OK.

Step 7. Reboot your computer to apply the policy.

After doing the above steps, it should not show the Taskbar Thumbnails Preview.