Put a bold headline on your image and export a YouTube thumbnail under the 2 MB limit.
PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels each, 12 images at a time.
Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Add your file to begin. The result shows here.
Now the video. Studio cuts the retakes and pauses and adds captions.
YouTube takes JPG or PNG thumbnails at 16:9, at least 640 pixels wide. From the mobile app the file can be up to 2 MB; from a computer, up to 50 MB. This tool exports a JPEG and lowers its quality a step at a time if it is over 2 MB, so the same file uploads from either.
A thumbnail is seen small, next to a dozen others. Three to five words that add to the title work better than a sentence that repeats it. If the small preview is hard to read, cut a word.
A face that fills a third of the frame, lit from the front, reads at any size. Darken the photo slightly behind light text, or use a band, so the words do not fight the picture. Keep the bottom right corner clear: the video's length is printed there.
16:9 and at least 640 pixels wide. 1280 × 720 is the long-standing standard; YouTube now also accepts much larger images.
No. The thumbnail is drawn in your browser.
Bricolage Grotesque in extra bold, the display typeface of this site, chosen for legibility at small sizes.
Any place that wants a 16:9 image: a course cover, a podcast video, a LinkedIn video cover.
Scrub to any frame of a video and save it as a full-resolution PNG or JPEG.
Make image files smaller, by quality or to a target size in kilobytes, and never larger than the original.
Crop an image to a shape by dragging the frame over the part you want to keep.
Write a YouTube description from your transcript, using only the links you give it.
Upload the raw recording. Studio cuts the ums, retakes and long pauses, adds captions and makes short clips. 30 free minutes, no card.