A preview version of Windows 11 hides a brand new photo gallery in the Windows 11 file explorer. For finally a better experience by sorting and searching in the photo folders of your PC?
With Windows 11, Microsoft has worked hard to improve its operating system’s file explorer. Recently, the Windows 11 file explorer has been equipped with tabs, like on web browsers, a very practical feature requested for a long time by users.
We learn through Albacore, a leaker who regularly shares future news relating to the Windows ecosystem, that Microsoft is developing a gallery tool for photos, directly integrated into the file explorer. This was seen on Windows 11 Insider Preview build 25300, which has been available for a few days. It is not active by default, but it is possible to make it appear following some manipulations in the registry and by using the ViVeTool configuration utility.
Windows 11: a photo gallery to replace thumbnails in File Explorer?
It has long been possible to preview your photos from File Explorer by selecting the appropriate icon display option, but Windows only offers thumbnails or thumbnails. This is a very different feature: a real gallery in which it is possible to navigate much more efficiently, with photos that are no longer displayed as icons. We imagine that Microsoft wants to improve the experience here for mobile devices equipped with a touch screen that run on Windows, but desktop users should also be able to benefit from it.
The source explains that the gallery in question has a timeline scroll bar, several configuration options and an integrated search function. However, it is still in the test phase and its development is not finished, so we are not likely to see it deployed on a stable version of Windows 11 for many months or even years. We hope that this will give Microsoft time to refine this novelty and enrich it, with why not the possibility of searching for a photo by description thanks to artificial intelligence, the Redmond firm’s new workhorse.
Hidden within build 25300 is something Longhorn’s shell designers wished to one day see in production — a XAML based photo gallery right inside File Explorer. Not as flashy as Phodeo, but I’d say it still counts. Has a timeline scrollbar & configurable photo source list. pic.twitter.com/Nbdqjm65pa
— Albacore (@thebookisclosed) February 19, 2023
