Live mouse hover preview for Windows File Explorer

[LimonPelador]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

We would love to see a mouse hover live-preview feature. QTTabBar has a feature that is a good example of such an enhancement. The tool is quick, intuitive, efficient and especially useful when processing photos or other documents where the user needs to see detail. The Windows File Explorer preview pane is great, but has the following limitations:

1. The preview window can be illegible in some smaller File Explorer windows.
2. It also takes up a lot of window real estate which can limit the visible file listing.
3. It does not respond to the mouse hovering over files other than the one currently selected.
4. Must turn ON or OFF when not in use.
5. Not as intuitive as simply hovering over a file.

On the other hand, an immediate live pop-up preview (upon mouse hover) has the following advantages:

1. No need to turn a preview pane ON or OFF.
2. It takes no real estate from the File Explorer window.
3. Extremely efficient for quickly processing photos or files for organizing and moving.
4. Eliminates the need to select a file, which means you can retain an original anchor point for extending a selection while also previewing photo or document content.
5. Very intuitive and simple to understand and use.
6. Fast and almost second nature.
7. Powerful when processing large numbers of photos or documents quickly.

Furthermore, such a feature enhancement should include the option of being toggled ON or OFF, a hover delay setting (immediate to longer), and an option to also set the size and resolution of the desired pop-up context preview. Many File Explorer preview options, such as ‘Extra Large’ icon thumbnails or small preview panes, can be very useful but often too small to help the user determine the true nature of the photo or document during processing.

Thank you for allowing us to comment.

Scenario when this would be used?

Processing photos often means seeing face detail or other subtle detail that helps identify the photo in context. Furthermore, many photos today are of invoices, checks, contact info, other device screens and a myriad other documents. In order to see the detail for moving these items to relevant folders, one requires a very quick enlarged, clear preview of the file. Furthermore, a user may already have selected a file as an anchor point for moving a group of files and cannot select a file for a preview without losing the original anchor point.

Supporting information

A search for a hovering mouse preview in Windows File Explorer should gather an abundance of comments on this feature.

[crutkas]

/dup #80

[LimonPelador]

Thank you so much for the reply crutkas. Unfortunately, the problem we see with #80 is that it requires the user to select the file first when using an app like Quick Look. This prevents the user from extending a selection that may be several pages of thumbnails above. That's because selecting a new file for the preview, resets the anchor point. We are looking for a solution that allows a preview by hovering with the mouse so you do not need to select the file. Thank you so much for your recommendation.

[crutkas]

/dup #80

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!