Blend-Files Previews

A blend-file can store previews, both for itself, and for some of its data-blocks. You can disable writing any previews when saving a blend-file using the Save Preview Images setting from the Save & Load section of the Preferences.

Blend-File Preview

Blender saves by default a small preview of current scene in the blend-file. This will show in the Thumbnail view of the File Browser.

During its installation, Blender also adds a small tool to your OS, that will allow your system file browser to show those previews as file thumbnails as well.

Data-Blocks Previews

Blender will automatically generate previews for some type of data, mainly the ones related to shading (like images, textures, materials, lights and world shaders).

It can also store previews for scenes, collections and objects, but those need to be generated manually.

These previews can then be used by the Thumbnail view of the File Browser, when linking or appending data-blocks.

Refresh Data-Block Previews

Reference

Menu:: File ‣ Data Previews ‣ Refresh Data-blocks Previews

Refresh all data-block previews that can be automatically generated by Blender (shading-related ones), in the current blend-file. You still need to save the file if you want to write them to the drive.

Batch Generate Previews

Reference

Menu:: File ‣ Data Previews ‣ Batch Generate Previews

Generate some data-block types’ previews (you can choose which in its options), in one or more blend-files on your drive. You should not use this operator on the file currently opened in Blender.

This is currently the only way to generate and store in blend-files previews for scenes, collections and objects. Note that since this involves a lot of rendering, even of small sizes, the process may take some time to complete.

Scenes: Generate previews of scenes and their collections.
Collections: Generate previews of collections of objects.
Objects: Generate previews of objects.
Materials & Textures: Generates previews for materials, textures, images, and other internal data.
Trusted Blend Files: When enabled, Python scripts and drivers that may be included in the file will be run automatically. Enable this only if you created the file yourself, or you trust that the person who gave it to you did not include any malicious code with it. See Python Security to configure default trust options.
Save Backups: Keep a backup version (blend1-file) of the files when saving with generated previews.

Clear Data-Block Previews

Reference

Menu:: File ‣ Data Previews ‣ Clear Data-blocks Previews

Clear all, a generic type of, or a specific data-block type of previews in the current blend-file. You still need to save the file if you want to clear them from the drive.

Batch Clear Previews

Reference

Menu:: File ‣ Data Previews ‣ Batch Clear Previews

Clear some data-block types’ previews (you can choose which in its options), in one or more blend-files on your drive. You should not use this operator on the file currently opened in Blender.

Scenes: Generate previews of scenes and their collections.
Collections: Generate previews of collections of objects.
Objects: Generate previews of objects.
Materials & Textures: Generates previews for materials, textures, images, and other internal data.
Trusted Blend Files: When enabled, Python scripts and drivers that may be included in the file will be run automatically. Enable this only if you created the file yourself, or you trust that the person who gave it to you did not include any malicious code with it. See Python Security to configure default trust options.
Save Backups: Keep a backup version (blend1-file) of the files when saving with generated previews.