Windows File Explorer Icon image for place holder

Feature Requests
1

Hello, Windows odrive sync 4851.

Currently when a file is only stored in the cloud, a place holder with a .cloud extension is displayed. However, the icon of the place holder file is simply a blank image (with pink corner). When the file is sync’d, the file image is used an icon, with a blue check.

Would it be possible to have the file image as an icon when only stored in the cloud (file is only a placeholder), with maybe a pink “X” or something (instead of the check mark)? Sounds petty, but when dealing with JPG, you have no idea what file is which.

2

Hi @kirkz

I’m not clear on what you are asking? Are you requesting that placeholder files show a thumbnail for images?

3

Yes. Similar to the way explorer displays local files now.

4

Got it. Yes this is something we may try to get into odrive at some point, but we do’t have any solid plans now.

Thanks for reaching out!

5

I’d really like to see thumbnails for images that are unsynced. It would make managing images so much easier. Having just a placeholder icon isn’t particularly helpful.

6

We are thinking through thumbnails mixed with placeholders. In the past, this has been problematic as it creates user confusion.

In the meantime, here are two workarounds:

  1. Right-click sync the folder and turn all placeholders into actual files. When you don’t need the files anymore, right-click to unsync the folder.

  2. Use the fantastic gallery view on the web client. We will add a right-click shortcut to make this easier.

7

Thanks for coming back to me on this one Peter. I’ve used your gallery view and it’s very effective but thanks for highlighting it. I would disagree that thumbnails for unsynced files would create user confusion. The styling of the file placeholder with the blue circle with a white tick is very clear and unambiguous. Thumbnails are a crucial mechanism for managing images and video when not wishing to sync very large quantities of data. Resolving this shortfall in odrive would make it the perfect replacement for Win8.1 placeholders that are so missed in Win10.