Thumbview

Because life's too short to thumb-wrestle with the VS Code sidebar.

A 2D, syntax-highlighted minimap grid of your entire VS Code workspace. Keep a thumb on your whole codebase without opening 80 tabs. See every file at once, search across all of them instantly, and jump to any line in one click.

Setup

1. Install the extension and open any workspace folder.
2. Press F4 (or run Thumbview: Open from the Command Palette) to open the grid. Thumbview scans your workspace automatically and requires zero configuration.
3. Optional: open the Thumbview container in the Activity Bar (left edge) to access the Actions & Settings, Directory Navigation, and Ignored Files & Directories panels.

Tune behavior later via File → Preferences → Settings → Thumbview (see Settings Reference).

Core Workflow

• Open the grid: F4. Press it again any time to refocus the tab.
• Jump to a line: left-click any line on any tile and the file opens scrolled exactly there.
• Identify files by shape: each tile is a syntax-highlighted minimap of one file, so you recognize code by its visual fingerprint, not by filename. The colored strip at the top of a tile shows its path.
• Magnify: hold Left CTRL and hover over a tile to preview full-size, readable code lines without opening the file.
• Search everything at once: type in the top search bar to highlight tokens across all visible tiles instantly. Press × or clear the box to reset. Toggle Match Case (Aa), Match Whole Word (ab), or Use Regular Expression (.*) next to the search box — or Alt+C/Alt+W/Alt+X from anywhere in the panel — to refine what counts as a match.
• Close a tile tab: middle-click it or click its ×.

Reading the Grid

• Layouts: thumbview.layoutMode selects "spanning_grid" (default - tall files span multiple vertical cells, so file length is visible at a glance) or "uniform_grid" (one equal cell per file). Switch any time from the Command Palette (Thumbview: Use Uniform/Spanning Grid Layout) or the Actions & Settings sidebar.
• Folder cards: when tiles would shrink below the minimum cell size (thumbview.minCellWidth: 32 / thumbview.minCellHeight: 28 px), files group into clickable folder cards. Click a card to drill into that subfolder; use the breadcrumbs at the top to navigate back.
• Reflow: run Thumbview: Reflow Layout to re-fit the grid after resizing the panel or window.

Ignoring & Unignoring Files

Keep the grid fast and relevant by hiding noise (dist/, generated code, vendored assets):

• Ignore a directory: right-click it in Directory Navigation → Ignore Directory (or click its inline eye-closed icon).
• Ignore a file: right-click its tile in the grid → Ignore in Thumbview.
• Unignore: click the 👁 icon next to any (hidden) folder in Directory Navigation, or right-click an entry in the Ignored Files & Directories panel → Unignore Directory.
• Custom glob patterns: click + at the top of the Ignored Files & Directories panel and enter a pattern such as *.log, build/, or src/generated/. Right-click a pattern later to remove it.
• Auto-ignore: any subfolder with more than thumbview.autoIgnoreThreshold files (default 30) is hidden automatically to keep rendering fast. Set it to 0 to disable, or unhide individual folders via 👁. Manual unhides are remembered as exclusions.
• Ignores live in workspace state, so each project keeps its own view.

More Features

• Isolate a folder: click a folder in Directory Navigation or a tile's header strip to dim everything else (opacity 0.15). Click All Workspace Files (Root) or the clear-all icon at the top of the panel to reset. This is the fastest way to scope search and scanning to one area of the codebase.
• Root files only: select Root Directory Files Only in the sidebar to spotlight top-level files (package.json, README.md, configs) for orienting yourself in an unfamiliar repo.
• Full file operations from the grid: right-click any tile for Open, Open to the Side, Open Preview, Select for Compare / Compare with Selected, Reveal in Explorer, Open Containing Folder, Cut/Copy/Paste paths, Rename, and Delete — no need to switch to the Explorer.

Shortcuts Reference

All shortcuts are also listed in the in-app ⚙ Actions & Shortcuts modal (top-right of the grid).

Settings Reference