Add Explorer thumbnails to Video files using Icaros

Icaros is a free tool that provides Windows File Explorer with thumbnails of video files. Basically, it is a collection of shell extensions that provides thumbnails for video files; it supports many common and uncommon video formats. Icaros is a simple but useful tool and the features are very uncommon, you can impress someone by adding this unique feature to Windows Explorer.

Add thumbnails to video files in Windows Explorer

Icaros can provide thumbnails for all those video formats that are supported by FFmpeg including the most popular Mkv, Flv, Avi, Mp4, Mov, Rmvb, M2ts, Ogm, etc. Alternatively, you can add other file types by simply adding their extensions in the optional file type text box. But remember to change any setting, you must disable Icaros first and then change the settings and then reactive Icaros.

You can even change the thumbnail offset value, thumbnail offset value is the position of the video from which the program would fetch the thumbnail. It is expressed in % and by default, its value is 25%, but with this amazing tool you can change it to whatever you want, I am using 50%. You can push it to 55%, 65% or just any value below 100%.

Under Advanced Options, you can enable the program to use the embedded cover art for thumbnails, and you can make the program prefer only landscape thumbnails. There is also an option to enable black-and-white frame detection.

The tool is very simple yet useful, the UI is very easy to operate. It has the simplest design with the simplest interface. You can activate and deactivate Icaros with just a hit of a button and you will be able to see the results instantly. Icaros doesn’t require any time to load or unload the thumbnails, it starts showing the thumbnails as you click the ‘Activate Icaros’ button.

Overall, Icaros is a great tool with unique features and a simple design, now you can push the limits of Windows Explorer with this tool. It has good format support and an instantaneous thumbnail framework.