While "Thumbs.db" is a Windows-specific file , the most interesting academic paper regarding its Android equivalent—the .thumbnails files—is Forensic Collection and Analysis of Thumbnails in Android by Leom and D’Orazio. Semantic Scholar

In the dimly lit basement of his tech-repair shop, stared at an old, water-damaged Android tablet. It belonged to a client who was desperate to recover photos of a lost relative, but the gallery was a graveyard of "corrupted file" icons.

If you don't want to install an app, you can use a web-based viewer through your Android browser (like Chrome): Thumbs DB Viewer : This tool lets you upload a

He realized then that while Windows creates these files to speed up folder loading, they also act as a digital paper trail. Even though Android doesn't naturally support these capital-lettered Windows files, Leo had moved them over from an old PC years ago, unwittingly creating a backup of memories he thought were deleted.