It beggars belief that gnome devs seem somehow totally incapable of understanding why one would want a proper thumbnail view in the file picker. Have they never had to find a specific image in a directory of many images? If you told me their response to the file picker issue is some kind of elaborate troll or gaslighting operation I would believe you.

Not a Linux user, but I heard about the problem OP describe with this usecase: identify a picture of your children in a camera dump with dozen of pictures where the filename are all dsc_1346.jpg. Don't use a dedicated software because it's only for quick sharing.

I see two previews, one next to the file name, and a large one on the right when clicking on a image file name. So:

25 years, now with preview images in file picker :)

1. select thing 2. press space 3. get preview of thing 4. come to hackernews 5. make a post complaining about lack of thing previews 6. ????