This post shows students and new users how to clear and reset the Windows thumbnail cache when using Windows 11.
Windows uses a cache to store copies of images, videos, documents, and other data so they can be retrieved quickly without trying to scan your system and locate them each time you want to reuse them.
Cache helps speed up your system and improve performance. Unfortunately, the Windows thumbnails cache can also become corrupted, causing thumbnails to display incorrectly or distorted.
When this happens, you may want to clear out and reset the cache so it can be rebuilt to resolve the corruption.
By default, Windows stores each user cache .db file in a hidden folder located at the path below:
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
Or browse the user folder.
(C:\Users\{user-name}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer)
If your system becomes slow and images are not displaying correctly or are distorted, resetting the Windows cache may help resolve the issues, and the steps below show you how.
How to reset or clear Windows cache in Windows 11
As mentioned above, Windows uses a cache to store copies of images, videos, documents, and other data so they can be retrieved quickly without trying to scan and locate them each time you want to reuse them.
If the Windows cache becomes corrupted, you may have to clear and reset it.
Below is how to do that.
First, open File Explorer, then click on This PC or Home. Next, Right-click on the Lock Disk (C:) drive and select Properties.
On the Properties window, under the General tab, select the Disk Cleanup button as highlighted.
Check the Thumbnails box, and click OK to clear and reset Windows thumbnails DB.
That should do it!
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to clear and reset the thumbnail DB cache in Windows 11. Please use the comment form below if you find any errors above or have something to share.
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