No icon preview for eps-files in Monterey

I contacted apple support using chat, they weren't overly helpful but when I was uploading a screenshot to the chat window I noticed that some images in a folder on DropBox was showing the image icons. Not all, just some and I've tried to replicate this but can't.

When I try to view them in finder, the same images don't display. I'm not technical by any stretch of the imagination so sorry if this is a stupid comment/question, could a work around be to use a different finder tool?

With the exception of .eps files, all my icons are back!!

I’m not sure exactly when it happened but I had to restart my Mac and log out for another process and the next day I was looking for images again and realised I could see them - what a RELIEF!

I know this doesn’t help those who use .eps files but they slow finder down so much that I put them in a different folder to other image files and only open it when I know I need one.

This exercise has made me aware of how crap finder is and that it’s probably worth considering a finder alternative. I’ll happily share when I find a good one.

Good luck to anyone still struggling with this issue.

Thank you for this suggestion! I downloaded Bridge and it is a good workaround until Apple fixes the issue. Support has contacted me twice now. I've given them all the files they have requested regarding the eps issue. Engineering is trying to determine if this functionality was left out intentionally or by mistake. Will keep everyone posted with any new news on the subject. -Bill

Hi, I see all icons in preview except the .eps files. Hopefully Apple will solve this problem as soon as possible. And since they get their hands on it, they could do it even faster: the old one took a minute to image to do the preview O_O

Holaaaaaaaaaaa

I was having this issue on all of my .ai files as well. I found a solution that helped: I went into `~/Library/Quicklook` and/or `~User/Library/Quicklook` and found an old EPS Quicklook Plugin in there that I trashed. After that, my QuickLook started working again on AI files. Then I went to `~User/Library/Quicklook` and trashed my DropboxQL.qlgenerator and my AI thumbnails started reappearing! Still no luck on the EPS files but it's a start.

UrbanKaos wrote:

Still nothing for this?

What do you mean my "nothing". I solved it 3 weeks ago. Granted, my solution will probably not make people happy. I suggested finding a 3rd party app that had an EPS quicklook preview and install that.

Yes. I know. You want Apple to fix it. Monterey was only released a few weeks ago. We've still got another couple of months before the first significant update for critical problem. I would be very surprised if there was a bug fix for this. Bug fixes are for "bugs". Perhaps the only guaranteed way to fix bugs is to remove the functionality that triggered them.

Has anyone actually looked for a third party app that will display EPS previews? I can write one if people want that. How much do you want to pay? I wrote a little app to "fix" a font issue in Big Sur and similar and people seem to really like that app. But spinning up a new app, even a free one, will cost several hundred dollars in fees, time, and effort. I can definitely do it. But it seems silly is there is some other app that does exactly what people want, is available today, and might just be a great app for a lot of other reasons.

Awesome, thank you!

Basically go into Finder, Pref, Advanced, tick 'show all filename extensions', untick 'show warning before changing an extension'........ back into Finder, search '.eps', select all, rename, replace, .eps with .ai and done!!!

I've never had an issue opening EPS files or previewing them, it's just been getting the thumbnail to show in finder/folders.

But the way AndroIL90 said has worked for me, basically rename all .eps to .ai, and now all my EPS thumbnails show and open in Photoshop as they should.

(thanks again AndroIL90)

So sorry for taking so long to reply, I keep getting locked out of my apple account! Back in now..

I'm not exactly certain what action fixed this for me but I restarted my laptop twice in the one day and then I realised they were back. I had restarted previously with no luck and because I was focused on another task I wasn't closely watching what was going on, there may have been an auto update installed on the restart but I can't say for sure.

Do you use Microsoft?

I've just started working with a client who is enterprise Microsoft 365 and they have set me up with an account that I have to use for all work with them. I have MS office set up on my Mac but I don't use Teams. Installing MS Teams under my client's 365 almost broke my Mac. I lost my preview icons again, I couldn't save documents to any drive except a MS cloud drive. I was using the client 365 in a different browser to any other work but it managed to get into my OS and cause so much havoc! It was so bad I've dragged out an old laptop to use in isolation and after logging out of the client MS account my icons came back again.

Might be a coincidence but when I searched for it, it seems a lot of people have had issues when having 2 MS accounts on one machine or, trying to use all the MS features on Mac rather than a windows machine.

Hasn't worked for me, the other users work around worked for me straight away though, just renaming the .eps extension to .ai and the thumbnail shows up straight away and opens as it should in Photoshop etc.

Hi, thanks for the solution, but there is a problem: the folder is locked and does not make me copy the modified file. Even if I try to add a user with full permissions, it doesn't let me create it: is there a way to unblock it?

Thanks

Yep did exactly that....

Copy from system-library-quicklook, pasted to desktop, edited the file, moved into library-quicklook.

Didn't do anything

(obviously didn't try moving into system-library-quicklook cause its a locked folder)

I recently installed Monterey & have the same issue. For instance when I do a screen print it does not show up on my desktop. I need to search for .png files using spotlight to find & access the file thus adding time to my overall work flow.

Did you update recently? Cause you have to do it all over again... Wondered why Quicklook and the previews weren't working anymore, so I had a look and the edited Illustrator.qlgenerator file was gone.

Made the edits again quickly and all is up and running once again.

What's really strange though, is that you had to boot to safe mode and/or the other problems which people are having. I place the edited Illustrator.qlgenerator in the /Library/QuickLook directory and it works instantly. Like, paste file, boom, previews and quicklook work :-/