How to use the Finder preview pane and Quick Look on a Mac

How do I preview a file without opening it?

Select it in Finder and press Space. Quick Look opens a large preview of photos, PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, audio and video. Press the arrow keys to move to the next file while it is open, and Space again to close it.

• Press ⌥ Space to open Quick Look full screen.
• Select several files, then press Space to step through all of them.
• Use the buttons at the top of Quick Look to rotate, mark up, or open the file in its app.

How do I turn on the preview pane in Finder?

Choose View, Show Preview, or press ⇧ ⌘ P. A panel on the right of the window shows the selected file and its details, such as size, dimensions and date. It works in every view, and is most useful in list and column view.

To choose which details it shows, choose View, Show Preview Options.

Why does the preview only show an icon?

macOS can only preview file types it, or an installed app, knows how to draw. Files from specialist apps often show a plain icon until that app is installed. Very large files can also take a moment to appear.

Set the view that suits previews: change the default Finder view. Images open in one window with Preview.

Checked on 22 October 2026 on a MacBook Air (M1) running macOS 27.0.1: Show Preview and Show Preview Options were read from Finder's menus.