How to add thumbnail column in SharePoint Document Library

In this SharePoint customization tutorial, we will discuss how to add thumbnail column in a SharePoint document library. Here, we will see two ways to add a thumbnail column to the SharePoint Online document library.

In the same way, we can create a thumbnail column in SharePoint 2013/2016 or SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Online document library thumbnail column

It is really easy to show a thumbnail column into a SharePoint Online modern document library.

Open the library, and click on + Add column and then choose Picture column type.

Then provide the name as Thumbnail like below. Make sure to provide the name as Thumbnail else it will not work.

Then click on Save, the thumbnail column will appear like below:

This supports all the types of documents like image, excel, word, PDF, PowerPoint etc.

This is how we can add thumbnail column in SharePoint Online document library.

Add thumbnail column in SharePoint document library

Here, I have a SharePoint Online document library where I have added a few documents including images, docs files, etc.

The SharePoint document library looks like below:

We will add a thumbnail column to the above document library.

By using a calculated column we can display the thumbnail in the document library.

Then click on Create column link like below:

Then give the column name, and select the Type as Calculated (calculation based on other columns) like below:

Then in the column settings select the Title column and choose the data type returned from this formula is a Single line of text.

[Title]

Click on OK.

Now, if you will open the SharePoint Online document library, then you can see the Thumbnail will appear like below:

The file types are not supported are like Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint files. And the file types which are supported are Word, PDF, Media, and Images files.

Note: This I have followed from a video shared by Mark Rackley.

You may like following SharePoint document library tutorials:

• Sync SharePoint Online Document Library with OneDrive and Work with Files Offline
• How to directly save Excel File into SharePoint Online Document Library
• How to Generate File Plan Report in SharePoint Document Library
• How to open documents in browser in SharePoint online document library?

Here, we learned different ways to add thumbnail column in the SharePoint Online document library.