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  7. Thumbcache Analysis
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Thumbcache Analysis

Introduction

Windows automatically generates thumbnail previews for images, documents, and videos when browsing folders.

Tools

Tool Purpose
Thumbcache Viewer GUI tool that can parse and extract images directly from thumbcache_*.db files.

Location 

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\

Common filenames 

thumbcache_32.db
thumbcache_96.db
thumbcache_256.db
thumbcache_1024.db
thumbcache_idx.db

Each file corresponds to a specific thumbnail size.

Using these files, images that the user viewed can be recovered, even if the originals have been deleted.

View and recover images using Thumbcache Viewer

  1. Open a thumbcache file, for example thumbcache_256.db.
  2. Browse through the extracted thumbnails.
  3. Export any recovered images for further analysis (.png or .jpg).