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Recently I updated album covers in most of my mp3s, but their respective thumbnails on Finder did not get updated.

Things I tried:

  • Removed (rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist) without solving the issue at all
  • "touch"(ed) the files, which refreshed some - not all - the thumbnails

Any ideas on how to force a refresh of my mp3 thumbnail icons in Finder?

See the manifestation of this issue below:

enter image description here

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8
  • Thumbnails are generated by QuickLook. You can reset its cache by typing qlmanage -r cache. If this didn't work reset it completly with qlmanage -r
    – Mateusz Szlosek
    Commented Oct 16, 2014 at 10:58
  • @MateuszSzlosek: You should submit this as an answer.
    – CousinCocaine
    Commented Oct 16, 2014 at 10:59
  • @CousinCocaine I've posted this as an answer now. I'm not sure if it helps, that's why I posted a comment.
    – Mateusz Szlosek
    Commented Oct 16, 2014 at 11:01
  • Nice. Although the question is form the OP, your post can help others as well. It might not be the right answer to this problem for the OP, it is an answer to the problem.
    – CousinCocaine
    Commented Oct 16, 2014 at 11:27
  • Do these .mp3 files have cover art? If not, no thumb will be created, ever. iTunes might put these in the 'same' album and only use the coverart of the first song. Are your really sure there is cover-art?
    – CousinCocaine
    Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 21:34

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
12

Thumbnails are generated by QuickLook. You can reset its cache by typing qlmanage -r cache.

If this didn't work reset it completly with qlmanage -r.

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1
  • 2
    Unfortunately it didn't force the thumbnails to update. Any other ideas?
    – Pomario
    Commented Oct 16, 2014 at 20:30
6

Option Right Click on Finder in the Dock.

Click Relaunch.

It should refresh the thumbnail icons. For sure this worked for images that I rotated with xnview.

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3

A combination of the previous answers worked on my MacBook Pro (mid 2012) running 10.13.6:

In Terminal:

qlmanage -r cache # qlmanage: call reset on cache

qlmanage -r # qlmanage: resetting quicklookd

Then: [Apple] > force quit > select Finder > relaunch

After a few seconds, this refreshed the .png and .jpg thumbnails on my desktop. I don't have .mp3s there so I can't speak to that.

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2

As of Catalina, it looks like the Dock thumbnails are updated by this process:

/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLookThumbnailing.framework/Support/
com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent

killall com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent

causes the Dock stack icons to go to a generic icon.

So, what I did to fix this:

qlmanage -r cache 
qlmanage -r 
killall com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent
killall Dock

Voila

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  • still works in Ventura, thanks.
    – Hendra Anggrian
    Commented Jul 14, 2023 at 16:04
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To refresh icons go to target folder (like cd /home/John/music/nocovers/ or cd ~/music/nocovers/ whatever - they mean the same for user John assuming /home/John/music/nocovers/ your target directory) in the Terminal and there execute:

qlmanage -p .

Should do the job.

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1
  • That just opens a window with a preview but it doesn't change anything after that. Still no thumbnails in Finder.
    – Prof. Falken
    Commented May 24, 2021 at 23:10
0

Check if the mp3 really have an artwork with some tag editor like https://itunes.apple.com/it/app/tag-editor-free/id984278082?mt=12

If there is maybe just try to re-add the artwork with the tag editor instead with itunes.. if you can see the icon now on finder so is itunes related issue and maybe the random I-heard-somebody-say is the right direction ;)

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-1

I found this thread on the Apple forum where one guy said he had the same problem as you with Finder not showing the cover art on MP3 icons. He said he fixed the problem by going into iTunes and deleting all his Voice Memos (apparently you have to delete them from both the Playlist and Genre sections in iTunes) and then restarting iTunes. A bunch of people replied to him saying that solved the problem for them as well. If you need your voice memos then back them up to a different location before you delete them from iTunes.

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1
  • This is the kind of random I-heard-somebody-say answer that is more typical of those very Apple forums that bring me to StackExchange. If you haven't tested a solution or have it on very good authority, please don't pass on random rumors.
    – Wes Modes
    Commented May 28, 2017 at 18:53

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