Quick Look in finder only shows a small image

Relaunching Finder fixed this issue for me without rebooting.

Press Option (⌥) while two-finger clicking (or right click, or control-option-click) on Finder in the Dock; select "Relaunch" and try Quick Look again.

Clint32 wrote:

Relaunching Finder fixed this issue for me without rebooting.

Press Option (⌥) while two-finger clicking (or right click, or control-option-click) on Finder in the Dock; select "Relaunch" and try Quick Look again.

Thank you, that is the right solution to restore Quick Look.

I found that the items with the small quicklook were iCloud items that were not downloaded but had a placeholder. Once I downloaded them (the cloud icon with the down arrow) they worked well.

Thanks but it only shows Rotate left, Markup, Create PDF, Trim, Convert Image. However after a reboot, I do get large images again using the space bar in Finder. I seem to have to reboot ofter or disable/enable bluetooth as my Magic Mouse often stops scrolling as well since Monterey upgrade.

Relaunching the Finder fixes it for me every time. Hold Option-key, click on Finder icon, Relaunch is the bottom option of the Menu.

This works for me. Monterey somehow made storage in the cloud (for OneDrive in my case), the default whereas I had previously had locally as well. Ensuring files are local seems to make QuickLook work fine and not be simply an icon.

Hold the Option key down, then while holding it, click on the Mac Finder icon. The 'Relaunch' is the last item in the menu.

I also don't have the Quick Look in Extensions. This comment helped me understand that the problem is when files are in the cloud, even iCloud not just DropBox, then you only get the small images.

Nothing works for me.

There is no option of Quick Look in Extensions, the above keystroke combination does nothing etc. I have tried all the fixes suggested on this and other forums, and nothing helps.

What I have realised, though, is that files stored on my laptop itself can be previewed with Quick Look, but but I keep my main work in Dropbox as it needs to be accessed by my home laptop and office iMac. The ones in Dropbox (ie stored in the cloud/with a third party etc) do not preview correctly and only show a thumbnail preview.

Apple: can you please look into this? It is a major shortcoming/bug in this system update and needs to be fixed PDQ.

Reiterating what @TheTrappistMonk found in Dropbox, now for OneDrive: When I first open a synced folder and try to preview a pdf file with Quick Look, it shows only a thumbnail of the first page. But if I open the same file in Preview, then close it, and again try Quick Look, it now shows the usual sneak peek of the whole file, with all its pages.

My guess is that the file was actually being indexed on cloud storage, but after opening it there's a cached local version, and it's that cache that Quick Look is actually consulting to build its display. But that's pure guesswork, not informed by any knowledge of the underlying code.

Relaunch does work, but it doesn't seem to do anything to my eps files. QL works fine on all of my other files (ai, psd, pdf, jpg, etc.) , but not eps. I have also reported the bug to apple through the site, so I'll just add mine to everyone else's at this point.

i had tested several ways. as well clearing quick look cache at library, settings, press option-space … it is crazy but nothing works for EPS and PDF here. Files on Server and Files on Desktop - all the same. Only for JPGs and PSDs it is working but not for any PDF or EPS. Icons of files, preview in folder and quick look via space or option-space … have no clue anymore what to do. hopefully my new mac arriving in april will do it. my bad i updated way to early at 12.1 … normally i wait until .3 or .4