diff --git a/app/advancedconfigpage.ui b/app/advancedconfigpage.ui
--- a/app/advancedconfigpage.ui
+++ b/app/advancedconfigpage.ui
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
      <item>
       <widget class="QCheckBox" name="kcfg_DeleteThumbnailCacheOnExit">
        <property name="text">
-        <string>Delete thumbnail cache folder on exit</string>
+        <string>Low resource usage mode</string>
        </property>
       </widget>
      </item>
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
    <item row="1" column="1">
     <widget class="QLabel" name="cacheHelpLabel">
      <property name="text">
-         <string>Enable this option if you do not have a lot of disk space.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;Be careful:&lt;/em&gt; this will delete the folder named &lt;filename&gt;.thumbnails&lt;/filename&gt; in your home folder, deleting all thumbnails previously generated by Gwenview and other applications.</string>
+         <string>Enable this option if you do not have a lot of disk space. This will avoid storing thumbnails on disk and will prefer embedded thumbnails of lower quality that are faster to load, if available.&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;em&gt;Be careful:&lt;/em&gt; this will delete the folder named &lt;filename&gt;.thumbnails&lt;/filename&gt; in your home folder, deleting all thumbnails previously generated by Gwenview and other applications.</string>
      </property>
      <property name="wordWrap">
       <bool>true</bool>
diff --git a/doc/index.docbook b/doc/index.docbook
--- a/doc/index.docbook
+++ b/doc/index.docbook
@@ -846,7 +846,7 @@
             <varlistentry>
                 <term><guilabel>Cache</guilabel></term>
                 <listitem>
-                    <para>Enable the <guilabel>Delete thumbnail cache folder on exit</guilabel> option if you do not have a lot of disk space.</para>
+                    <para>Enable the <guilabel>Low resource usage mode</guilabel> option if you do not have a lot of disk space. This will avoid storing thumbnails on disk and will prefer embedded thumbnails of lower quality that are faster to load, if available.</para>
                     <para>Be careful: This will delete the folder named <filename>.thumbnails</filename> in your home folder, deleting all thumbnails previously generated by &gwenview; and other applications.</para>
                 </listitem>
             </varlistentry>
diff --git a/lib/thumbnailprovider/thumbnailgenerator.cpp b/lib/thumbnailprovider/thumbnailgenerator.cpp
--- a/lib/thumbnailprovider/thumbnailgenerator.cpp
+++ b/lib/thumbnailprovider/thumbnailgenerator.cpp
@@ -119,7 +119,11 @@
     if (!content.rawData().isEmpty()) {
         QImage thumbnail = content.thumbnail();
 
-        if (qMax(thumbnail.width(), thumbnail.height()) >= pixelSize) {
+        // If the user does not care about the generated thumbnails (by deleting them on exit), use ANY
+        // embedded thumnail, even if it's too small.
+        if (!thumbnail.isNull() &&
+            (GwenviewConfig::deleteThumbnailCacheOnExit() || qMax(thumbnail.width(), thumbnail.height()) >= pixelSize)
+        ) {
             mImage = std::move(thumbnail);
             mOriginalWidth = content.size().width();
             mOriginalHeight = content.size().height();