This really needs to be fixed. The Gnome file picker still does not have icons in the file picker view in 2023. This is after all of the submissions to GitHub that include patches to fix this issue. The first issue was raised in 2004 and nothing has been done in all this time. This is 19 years, 2 months, and 23 days ago. And now we finally get a fix in Gnome 4.4, but this is slow to filter down to the major distributions that use Gnome. I am using Alma Linux, but I have not received the update yet. This is an example of open-source developers. If they were working at Microsoft they would have implemented it years ago. But open-source developers are lazy and could not be bothered to fix anything, especially the lazy Gnome developers, all they care about is creating a trashy mobile phone interface for Gnome.
This is the future I guess, with a trash mobile interface that they call Gnome Shell and no real work put into the actual Gnome user experience. This really needs to be fixed. With a nice interface for the Gnome desktop Linux would really benefit. Gnome 2.32 was the peak of the Linux desktop and it has gone downhill since then. Such a shame. I guess you could use Mac OS instead, which has had icons in the file picker for ages. If the Gnome 4.4 release is out I wish they would hurry up and get it out to all major distributions. That would really help.