Thumbs.db is a cache file that is used by Windows in any folder it finds a picture or video. It is intended to speed up the displaying of thumbnails. Windows Explorer uses thumbs.db to view cache images when the folder is viewed in Thumbnails view. The thumbnails are created and saved once as thumbs.db instead of creating thumbnails 'on the fly' each time Windows Explorer displays the contents of a folder. Thumbs.db stores data for the following formats: JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF, AVI, PDF, PPTX, DOCX, HTML etc. Thumbs.db is a hidden file. It means that you could see it in windows file manager only if you checked 'Show hidden files and folders' in Folder Options.  
In Windows Vista and Windows 7, a central cache of thumbnail images was invented. The thumbcache is stored at %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer as a number of files with the name thumbcache_xxx.db where xxx is a number between 1 and 999.
Thumbs.db is totally safe to delete. It will be automatically generated next time you browse a folder in Thumbnails view. But you could disable re-creation of it. In Explorer, go to Tools, then Folder Options and click on the View tab. Check the box “Do not cache thumbnails” and click OK. You can also change this setting in the Registry. Open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe). Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. Double-click the DisableThumbnailCache value, or go to Edit -> New -> DWORD value to create a new value by that name. Enter 1 for its value. Click Ok and close the Registry Editor when you're done; you'll have to log off and then log back on for this to take effect.

Get more detailed information about Thumbs.db and all other running background processes with Security Task Manager.

Note: Any malware can be named anything - so you should check where the files of the running processes are located on your disk. If a "non-Microsoft" .exe file is located in the C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32 folder, then there is a high risk for a virus, spyware, trojan or worm infection! Check it out!

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Users Opinions

538 users ask for this file. 5 users rated it as not dangerous. 1 user rated it as dangerous.

All comments about Thumbs.db: For faster thumbnail viewing in folders  See also: Link   A Helpful Tipper If you low on hard drive space, you could freely disable creation of Thumbs.db files mentioned above and safely delete all Thumbs.db files saving needed megabytes. Well, I'm using this "del /ash /s thumbs.db " from command line to delete files.   Alex I found a good utility to view Thumbs.db files. Hope it will be useful for someone else.  See also: Link   Elena for thumbnail foto not virus i scan with nod32 and bitdefender   irvan kurniawan If you know more about Thumbs.db, share your knowledge and help other users. Security Rating:  --- don't know ---  1 (not dangerous)  2  3 (neutral)  4  5 (dangerous) What do you know about this file: Link for more details: Your Name:

More process information

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