# Thumbs



## Sheilaru (Dec 19, 2019)

As a newbie, I don't understand thumbs and why they are filling up my catalogs. Can I safely delete all thumbs?


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## clee01l (Dec 19, 2019)

sheilacatterall said:


> As a newbie, I don't understand thumbs and why they are filling up my catalogs. Can I safely delete all thumbs?



This has no relation to Lightroom. It is a Windows explorer issue. The “*.thumb” files are created by Windows Explorer. Stop using Windows Explorer to view file and Windows will stop creating the thumbnail files. 

https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/what-are-thumbsdb-files-and-can-i-delete-them-windows.htm

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## Sheilaru (Dec 19, 2019)

Actually I have not used Windows in 20 years--all Apple devices. 

Here's an example of the file name: *thumb_jpg206.jpg

They are thumbnails of jpegs.*


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 19, 2019)

Then you must be using a MacOS app that creates those thumbs. Lightroom does not do that. What is your workflow?


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 20, 2019)

Hi Sheila, welcome to the forum!

Where as you finding these thumbs files? That would offer some clues as to what they are exactly.


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## clee01l (Dec 20, 2019)

sheilacatterall said:


> Actually I have not used Windows in 20 years--all Apple devices.
> 
> Here's an example of the file name: *thumb_jpg206.jpg
> 
> They are thumbnails of jpegs.*



Sorry for assuming that you were a Windows user. I’ve been away from Windows since I retired in 2008. In all the time I have been a Mac user, I’ve never seen a thumbs file on a Mac volume. I don’t know of any Mac app that creates them. Certainly not LR which creates any new Previews images in the Previews.lrdata package folder.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 20, 2019)

Are you perhaps using Apple Aperture to import the photos from the memory card to the computer before you import them into Lightroom? Apple Aperture creates these kinds of thumbs, but because they are inside the Aperture Library package it should not be possible for Lightroom to access them. If you use some kind of trick to make Lightroom access the library package anyway (there are indeed ways to do that), then this could be the result.


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