I don't see Thumbnails anymore

SketchUp
23

Hello, I also found the thumbnail extension in the SKP app, but not sure what to do next to get thumbnails back. Any help appreciated. Thanks.

24

–got CHAT to help me out. Cheers, all.

25

What was the solution? Would you mind sharing? SU support is very tricky to navigate.

26

I could not really follow Chat’s attempt at a solution. I might try again, but I spoke with Apple support yesterday and the conclusion they came to is that it is not an Apple issue. OK…back to Trimble, I guess. I wrote to tech support but have not heard back yet.

27

On Mac, one solution is to install Su 2024 and go to Settins/Open at launch and deactivate all Sketchup Quiclook but one, in turn until only the 2024 is active you will know when you see thumnails are back. carry on using SU 2026

28

I was waiting for 2026.2 to be released before posting something about this.

2023, and 2024, do seem to be ok with macOS as far as showing thumbnails goes.

Anyone who doesn’t have 2023 or 2024 could go in and turn off all of the Quick look entries, download 2024, open it enough to get to the welcome screen, then close it. By then the 2024 Quick look entry should be in place, and is enabled.

The thumbnails may not show up immediately, but if you hold Option, right-click on the Finder icon in the Dock, and choose Relaunch, thumbnails will show up.

You would want to keep 2024 installed, but you don’t need to use it, 2026 thumbnails will be working as well.

29

And for people who do have 24 installed? Any fixes?

I have this installed. Sadly no thumbnails.
I do think I had them briefly when I was running the latest beta from TrimbleLabs, but they went away when I removed it.

30

I think that the list in Quick look is in release order. Meaning, the first one is 2026, then 2025, etc. You could turn all of them off, then take educated guesses which one is 2024, and turn that on. You need to relaunch Finder between each test.

31

Found it, got it on the first try.

32

Hi everyone,

I’m seeing exactly the same issue. I originally had the problem on macOS Sonoma and have since updated to macOS Tahoe, but the problem still exists.

System

  • Mac mini M1
  • Apple M1 8-core GPU
  • macOS Tahoe (also occurred before updating from Sonoma)
  • SketchUp Pro 2026.2.242

Symptoms

  • No Finder thumbnails for any .skp files.
  • Space Bar (Quick Look) does not preview any .skp files.
  • Freshly downloaded models from 3D Warehouse are also affected.
  • Other file types (PDF, JPG, PNG, etc.) preview normally.

Things I’ve already checked

  • SketchUpThumbnailExtension.appex exists inside the SketchUp application bundle.
  • pluginkit -m | grep -i sketchup returns:

com.sketchup.SketchUp.2026.SketchUpThumbnailExtension(26.2)
com.sketchup.LayOut.2026.LayOutThumbnailExtension(26.2)

  • Cleared Quick Look caches.
  • Restarted Finder.
  • Rebuilt Launch Services.
  • Updated macOS from Sonoma to Tahoe.
  • Tested files on both the Desktop and in Dropbox.
  • Tested brand-new models downloaded from 3D Warehouse.

None of these restored Finder thumbnails or Quick Look previews.

Has anyone from the SketchUp team found anything else that would be useful to test?

33

What I said earlier should work, if you have SketchUp 2024 still installed (or can install it), and figure out which one in the quick look list is for SketchUp 2024.

Whatever was special with 2024 seems to be true in the internal versions we are using. I can’t yet say when there will be more updates from us, but when there are, thumbnails should work without doing workarounds.

34

Thanks Colin, I’ll install Sketchup 2024 and see if that makes a difference.

I’ve also found another issue in SketchUp 2026.2 on macOS you might llike to know about.

Using Move + Copy, typing x5 produces an Internal Error, but typing 5x works correctly. This happens in every model, including a brand-new file, and the model passes Validity Check with no problems.

35

Check to see if you have X set as a shortcut for something. I don’t use X for anything, and x5 or 5x both work when using move/copy.

36

Ok, I’m still lost trying to follow this discussion. I have 2022 on up installed on this machine including 2024.

What list, where?

Edit: Ok I found it
In Sonoma:
System Settings → Privacy and Security → Extensions → Quicklook

No luck on first try. Do I need to move to Tahoe for this to work?

37

Have you tried Codex? If not, install it, tell it what the issue is, and ask it to fix it. It should handle it.

38

Second try was seemed to do it.

39

When updating SketchUp, this thumbnail issue always used to happen to me. I usually had to manually adjust files to fix it.

For the last update, I used Codex. I told it to update SketchUp, delete the old SketchUp version, migrate the plugins, and fix the known thumbnail issue. It handled everything in one click, and it worked without any problems.