What is Aero Peek?
In Windows 10, when you have multiple windows of the same application open (like three Google Chrome windows or five Word documents) and you hover your mouse over the app’s icon in the taskbar, Windows displays small, live thumbnail previews of each window.
This feature (often referred to as Aero Peek) is designed to help you quickly find the specific window you need. However, if you have a slower computer, these live rendering thumbnails can cause the taskbar to lag or freeze. Furthermore, if you are working on confidential documents or presenting your screen on a Zoom call, having large thumbnail previews of your hidden windows pop up accidentally can be a massive privacy risk. You can disable these thumbnails and revert to a simple text list.
How to Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Previews
To turn off the thumbnail previews and replace them with a much faster, text-based list, you must adjust the Windows Performance Options.
- Click the Start button, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter. This opens the System Properties window.
- Click on the Advanced tab at the top.
- Under the “Performance” section, click the Settings… button.
- A new window titled “Performance Options” will appear. Ensure you are on the Visual Effects tab.
- In the long list of checkboxes, scroll down and find the option labelled Enable Peek (in older versions, this might be called “Save taskbar thumbnail previews” or “Enable Aero Peek”).
- Uncheck the box.
- Additionally, uncheck the box labelled Show thumbnails instead of icons to completely stop Windows from generating previews anywhere.
- Click Apply, then click OK.
Now, when you hover over a grouped taskbar icon, Windows will instantly display a clean, vertical list of the window titles in text format, completely eliminating the laggy and potentially compromising visual thumbnails.