No more thumbnail icons for Offfice documents

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Level 2

251 points

No more thumbnail icons for Offfice documents

Tonight after restarting my iMac, the icons for Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) are the generic ones instead of a thumbnail representing the content of the document.

I only have this issue with Office documents.

I use Mojave 10.14.5 and Office 2019 (v 16.26) + Office 2011 (v 14.7.7 )

I tried resetting quicklook caches to no avail (qlmanage -r cache in Terminal)

I rebooted the Mac with shift pressed to reset other system caches... no changes.

I reinstalled Office 2019... nothing new

How can I force macOS to use quicklook thumbnail for my Office documents instead of the generic Excel, Word or Powerpoint icons?

Thanks for any help

iMac 27", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jun 22, 2019 2:32 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Old Toad

Level 10

207,577 points

Jun 22, 2019 3:00 PM in response to Remy Leroy

Bring up the Info pane for one of your Word documents and verify that Word is the default app to open it. If not set Word as the default app and click on the Apply to All button. Also make sure all of the files have the Word extension on it.

Also increase the icon size in the View opening for that folder:

At the smallest icon size for the List viewing mode the default icon is used.

If still not showing boot into Safe Mode and check the files from there.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.

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Answer 2

Driftin

Level 1

44 points

Jun 23, 2019 7:14 AM in response to Remy Leroy

I used to have this error for all icons, but it fixed. Here's how:

Go to <username> -> Library. However, it is hidden, so to toggle show hidden items, press cmd + shift + .
Go to -> Application Support -> Dock and find folders with random dashes, number and letter. It should not be there, as they should only contain desktoppicture.db.
Move it to Trash and delete it
Restart mac or killall Dock and killall Finder in Terminal.

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Answer 3

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jun 23, 2019 9:44 AM in response to VikingOSX

I've already done these 2 actions with no change at all.

The weird thing is that I have the same issue on 2 different Mac.

One running Mojave 10.14.5 and Office 2019 + Office 2011
One running El Capitan 10.11.6 and Office 2011

The issue came all of a sudden... The only thing in common between these 2 Mac is DropBox.

As a new version of the DropBox Application has been updated recently, I suspect that DropBox may be the culprit.

I sent an email to the dropbox support to check with them.

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Answer 4

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jun 23, 2019 9:47 AM in response to VikingOSX

I've already done these 2 actions with no change at all.

The weird thing is that I have the same issue on 2 different Mac.

One running Mojave 10.14.5 and Office 2019 + Office 2011
One running El Capitan 10.11.6 and Office 2011

The issue came all of a sudden... The only thing in common between these 2 Mac is DropBox.

As a new version of the DropBox Application has been updated recently, I suspect that DropBox may be the culprit.

I sent an email to the dropbox support to check with them.

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Answer 5

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jun 23, 2019 2:35 AM in response to Remy Leroy

After some testings, it appears that only some Office file format are impacted.

If I open an Office file (let's say a .docx Word document) or create a new one, when I save it, no thumbnail icon is displayed (only a generic Word icon).

If I save the same file in .docm format (Word file with macros), a thumbnail icon is displayed representing the content of the file.

Same behaviour with Excel or Powerpoint. The .xlsm or .pptm file format still display thumbnail icons while other formats only display generic Excel or Powerpoint icons.

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Answer 6

Jun 23, 2019 4:22 AM in response to Remy Leroy

I wonder if the tool that you used to create those image thumbnails on the shown folders, may also be interfering with the Office 2019 document icons proper presentation in the FInder. Are you actually using the Finder, or is it a Finder replacement product?

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Answer 7

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jun 23, 2019 5:02 AM in response to VikingOSX

I use the Finder, and the issue is present in every folder (not only on the desktop), and these icons on the 2 folders shown on the screenshot, have been there for long without any interference (I have a lot of folders with pasted icons instead of the generic one)

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Answer 8

Jun 23, 2019 6:58 AM in response to Remy Leroy

On just the Desktop, press ⌘-J to bring up the Finder View Options. Have you selected, or deselected the Show Icon preview?

In ~/Library/Caches, there may be a com.apple.finder folder. Drag that specific Finder folder temporarily to your Desktop, and then reboot. Any change in your Office icon presentation? If things are back to normal, you can trash com.apple.Finder folder on your Desktop.

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Answer 9

Driftin

Level 1

44 points

Jun 23, 2019 8:19 PM in response to Remy Leroy

You can reinstall or update office. There is no harm for doing this (correctly). I also suspect that DropBox does nothing to do with this. Finally, you can try MalwareBytes for and bugs or virus on mac.

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Answer 10

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jun 23, 2019 10:37 PM in response to Driftin

I've already tried to reinstall Office with no results.

And I've used MalwareBytes anti malware too, with nothing detected.

I'm now really convinced that the issue doesn't come from my Mac as it appeared simultaneously on my 2 Macs with completely different configurations (except the upgrade to the new version of the DropBox application)

I will wait for the answer from the support team of DropBox and I will let you know if the problem is there.

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Answer 11

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jul 8, 2019 8:58 AM in response to kellmurph44

No news from Dropbox yet...

if you have the same issue and are using Dropbox too, you should send a request to their support team. It may accelerate their investigation if more users are reporting the same problem.

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Answer 12

Remy Leroy Author

Level 2

251 points

Jun 23, 2019 9:46 AM in response to Driftin

Thanks for the idea... but nothing weird there

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Answer 13

Jun 22, 2019 2:35 PM in response to Remy Leroy

When you right-click on one of these Office icons, does the Open With sub-menu show that application at the top as the default? Wondering about the launch services database being out of whack.

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