No icon preview for eps-files in Monterey

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.

That's why you have to copy "Illustrator.qlgenerator" from "/System/Library/QuickLook" to somewhere accessible, like your user's desktop.

Once you've made the edits in the PLIST, copy the complete "Illustrator.qlgenerator" to "/Library/QuickLook" to enable it for all users. Do NOT try to paste it in "/System/Library/QuickLook"! This folder is locked, as it should be.

If you only want to enable this QuickLook Generator for your user, copy it to "~/Library/QuickLook"

Just my two cents on the whole situation...

• The problem got nothing to do with Adobe's software (as I've got nothing from Adobe installed :D )
• The problem is, that the correct identifier for EPS files is missing in the .plist of the "Illustrator.quicklook"-Generator, which handles both, previews and QuickLook
• Renaming EPS files to .ai is no viable solution in my opinion, you create more of a mess than it actually does good. Yes it works, but the EPS file stays an EPS file, no matter the file extension. So you just tricked the system and gave all the EPS' a wrong file extension. Have fun sorting that one out in the future...
• Everytime there was a system update from Apple for macOS, the edited QuickLook generator file was gone. So keep that in mind, you'll have to do it with every point update again until it get's fixed.
• The "/Library" confusion: I did use the complete path for every folder, so that it's clear what I'm talking about. You have a "/System" folder (and therein a "Library" folder) in the root of your main volume. That "/System" folder is so to say untouchable, no editing allowed whatsoever, just reading, nothing else, it's the base of your computer... Luckily there is a "/Library" in the root of your main volume too, where you can add and edit things and this "/Library" folder has effect on all users you have on your Mac. And then, there is a "Library" folder for every user as well, which is per default hidden and located in the user's home folder. Everything in there only affects the corresponding user. So you could use that as well to paste the edited QuickLook generator if you only want to affect it a special user.

That's pretty much it for now :D

Go to page 3 of this thread, and see the instructions from Kurthis about how to edit Illustrator.qlgenerator. That got the EPS icon previews working for me.

Force Quit com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent process in activity monitor, then force quit finder. I got everything back except eps. Trying the above solution for eps currently.

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

OK. I give up. I have a new app that needs a lot of icons. I think I may have many of these icons in some of my old clip art, much of which is in eps files. I tried using a couple of different 3rd party apps, but they didn't seem to have any Quick Look previews.

So, I carried through with my threat, more or less. I wrote a little app that does nothing but open eps files and preview them. I have neither the time nor inclination to setup a payment system, so this is a free app.

Alas, the Apple Support Communities Use Agreement does not allow me to post links to my own apps, free or not. Anyone who wants the app will have to find me and e-mail me for the link. But once you have the link, you are free to post it here. I'm the only one who can't post the link.

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 :-/

That worked, thank you so much! I sincerely appreciate your support.

1. In Finder, click Go > Go to Folder, then type /System/Library/QuickLook
2. Duplicate Illustrator.qlgenerator file to the Desctop and do the edits as described on page 3 of the discussion.
3. Then go to Finder > Go > Go to Folder, then type /Library/QuickLook, and paste the edited file here.
4. Restart your computer and EPS previews are back!

(Don't try to click Go + Option to open Library using Finder as QuickLook folder is empty there)

Apple did not fix or explain anything so far. Placing the modified illustrator.qlgenerator file in the user library (~/Library/Quicklook) instead of /Library survived the update though.

For me it means that I can either copy it in /Library/Quicklook für a system-wide workaround and keep doing that after every update... or have our users copy it in their user library themselves, at least then it might stick around.

Credit to the Adobe community :)

If you have it, Adobe Bridge could be useful for this.

I have the same problem as well - but it's for all icon previews - .jpg, .png, .psd & .mp4 files simply will not show previews, even when selected in view preferences. Very frustrating. Submitting bug report now.

I have this problem on most of my files too. I use both Google drive and DropBox, I've tried resetting them, I've reset spotlight and relaunched finder.

I can't see .png .jpg .psd . sag . eps .pdf... the only files I can see the icons for are .ai files. The behaviour is the same regardless of the file being stored locally on my HDD or sync'd from my GD or DB.

I only upgraded yesterday and this has killed my productivity, I've depended on this feature for years so don't have a fall back process.

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?

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.