How Can I Retrieve File Thumbnails in C# Using the Windows API?

C# Retrieving File Thumbnails Using Windows API

In Windows Explorer, file thumbnails are displayed through core and third-party shell extensions. While extending the shell to provide custom thumbnails is possible, this article focuses on retrieving these system-generated thumbnails via C#.

Windows maintains a diverse range of file types and provides corresponding thumbnail representations. These include formats such as .DOC, .PDF, .3DM, and .DWG. To avoid the laborious task of parsing and rendering, we can leverage Windows' built-in capabilities to retrieve these ready-made thumbnails.

A solution is found in the WindowsAPICodePack library, available on GitHub and NuGet:

• Source: https://github.com/dbarros/WindowsAPICodePack
• NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/WindowsAPICodePack-Shell

Using this library, the following code demonstrates thumbnail extraction:

ShellFile shellFile = ShellFile.FromFilePath(pathToYourFile);
Bitmap shellThumb = shellFile.Thumbnail.ExtraLargeBitmap;

This snippet assigns the thumbnail to the shellThumb variable, which can then be displayed or used as needed.

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