A lightweight and fast thumbnailer for Nautilus that generates thumbnails for RAW image files using embedded previews extracted with exiv2. This thumbnailer should work with most RAW formats that have embedded previews.
Tested on NixOS 25.11 with Nautilus (GNOME Files). Should work also with Nemo and Caja.
If thumbnails are not generated, check that mime type of your RAW files is contained in exiv2raw.thumbnailer.
If you're having issues with the thumbnailer, try these debugging steps:
- Reset Nautilus and clear the thumbnail cache:
nautilus -q
rm -rf ~/.cache/thumbnails/*- Launch Nautilus with debugging enabled:
G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all NAUTILUS_DEBUG=Window nautilus- Check if the script can extract thumbnails manually:
exiv2-thumbnailer.sh /path/to/your/file.RAW /tmp/test-thumbnail.png- Verify that your RAW files have embedded previews:
exiv2 -pp /path/to/your/file.RAWWorking
- .ORF, .ARW, .NEF, .RAF, .CR2, .CR3, DNG, .RW2