How to Change Taskbar Thumbnail Hover Speed in Windows

In Windows, you can increase or decrease the speed of the taskbar thumbnail to make the hover effect snappier. Follow these steps to do it.

One of the best features of the Windows taskbar is that it shows a quick preview thumbnail of the app when you hover over its icon. In addition to the general live preview, if applicable, the thumbnail can also contain media controls. For example, if you are using Spotify, you get access to the media controls like play, pause, or skip directly on the taskbar thumbnail controls. No need to switch to the application.

To show the thumbnail preview, it takes around half a second after you hover over the application icon. This delay is a design decision by Microsoft to reduce accidental hover thumbnails and thumbnail actions. For most people, it is not that much of a delay. However, when you are in a hurry to change a track or see a quick preview, that half a second can be too long. The same is applicable when you want your system to feel responsive and snappier.

That being said, with a simple registry edit, you can either increase or decrease the time it takes to show thumbnail when you hover over a taskbar application icon. Simply put, reducing the time it takes to show the thumbnail on the taskbar will make your system appear much snappier and responsive. On the other and increasing the delay will reduce the chances of accidental thumbnails.

So, without further ado, let me show how you can change taskbar thumbnail hover speed in Windows.

Change Taskbar Thumbnail Preview Hover Speed or Time

Like I said before, we need to make a simple registry change to speed up or slow down thumbnail previews on the taskbar. Before editing, I recommend you back up the registry to be safe. If the change is not to your satisfaction or if something bad happens, you can restore the registry.

1. First, open the start menu, search for “Registry Editor” and click on the result to open the Registry Editor. After opening the editor, go to the following location. If you are using Windows 10, copy the path, paste it in the address bar, and press Enter to go to the “Advanced” folder.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

2. Now, right-click on the “Advanced” folder and select the “New → Dword Value” option. Name the newly created value as “ExtendedUIHoverTime” and press Enter.

3. After creating the value, double-click on it. In the Value Data field, enter one of the following values depending on your use case. Click on the “Ok” button to save changes.

• Instant thumbnails (no delay between hover and thumbnail appearance) – 1
• Increase thumbnail hover delay – Time in milliseconds up to 5 seconds. Ex: If you want to delay thumbnail preview for 2 seconds, type 2000.
• Disable thumbnails completely – 30000

4. You are done setting up the value, close the Registry Editor and reboot the system or restart explorer to make the changes take effect.

That is it. It is that simple to change taskbar thumbnail preview speed or time in Windows 10. If you ever want to restore the default behavior, either delete the “ExtendedUIHoverTime” value or change its value data to “0”.

I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, do check out how to pin any folder to taskbar and how to add favorites toolbar to taskbar.