YouTube Thumbnail Resizer
1280×720 is the easy part. This shows you whether it still works at the size people really see it.
In pixels, as designed in the full-size frame. Leave blank if there is no text.
Fills the space around a contained image.
Dims the duration badge and any crop. Never included in the download.
Where a thumbnail is actually shown
| Surface | Width | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sidebar suggestion | 168px | Next to a playing video on desktop |
| Search result | 246px | Mobile search and subscriptions feed |
| Home shelf | 360px | Desktop home page grid |
| Mobile feed | 480px | Full-width row on a phone |
| Watch page hero | 1280px | Only before the video plays |
Drop an image here
or paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V. Nothing is uploaded.
Everything here runs on your device. Nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.
Every thumbnail tool tells you 1280×720. None of them tell you the thing that decides whether the thumbnail works, which is that almost nobody sees it at 1280.
How to use it
Drop an image in or paste a screenshot. Pick the thumbnail size. Type in how tall your largest text is, in pixels, and the tool tells you which of YouTube’s five display sizes it stays readable at. Adjust, then download as a JPEG at the exact dimensions.
The 168-pixel problem
A thumbnail appears at five different widths. In the desktop sidebar next to a playing video it is about 168 pixels. In mobile search and the subscriptions feed it is around 246. On the desktop home grid, 360. In a full-width mobile row, 480. At 1280 only on the watch page, before the video starts — which is after the click has already happened.
The sidebar is the one to design for, because it is where a large share of views come from and it is the smallest. Text needs roughly 14 device pixels of height to read as words rather than shapes. At 168 wide, a 1280-wide design is displayed at 13 percent, so your text has to be around 107 pixels tall in the file. That is very large — three or four words, filling a third of the height. Most thumbnails have twice that much text at half that size.
The duration badge is not optional
Every surface that shows a video length paints an opaque badge over the bottom-right corner. Put a face there and it is half covered; put the punchline of your text there and it is gone. The badge region is dimmed in the preview.
The bottom edge has a second hazard: a red progress bar for anyone who has partly watched the video. Keeping the lowest 5 percent of the frame free of anything load-bearing handles both.
The 2 MB limit, and why JPEG
YouTube refuses uploads over 2 MB. A 1280×720 PNG of a photograph is right at or above that, because PNG is lossless and photographs have no flat areas to compress. The same frame as a quality-90 JPEG is under 250 KB and visually identical at every size it is displayed. The tool estimates the file size as you change format and warns you before you get an upload error.
Shorts covers work in two shapes
A Shorts cover is 1080×1920 and shown full-frame while playing, but the shelf crops it to roughly 3:4 and the title, channel name and the like-comment-share rail sit on top. The safe region is about 75 percent of the frame, centred and slightly high. All of it is drawn on the preview.
What it does not do
It does not upload, so it cannot set your thumbnail for you. It does not add text — this is a resizer, not an editor, and your design tool is better at type. And it will not silently enlarge a small image: if your source is under 1280 wide, the warning tells you by how much.
Which tool for which job
| You want to | Use |
|---|---|
| A thumbnail that reads at 168 pixels | This tool |
| A channel banner with the TV, desktop and mobile crops | YouTube Banner Resizer |
| Instagram sizes with story and grid safe zones | Instagram Post Resizer |
| Any custom pixel size | Image Resizer |
| A smaller file at the same dimensions | Image Compressor |
Everything happens in your browser using the File and Canvas APIs. No upload, no account, no copy left behind when you close the tab.
Questions
What size should a YouTube thumbnail be?
1280×720, saved as JPEG, under 2 MB. That is a 16:9 shape and YouTube's stated minimum width is 640, but 1280 is what it wants and anything larger is downscaled on upload. The size is the least interesting requirement though — a thumbnail at the perfect dimensions still fails if the text is unreadable in the 168-pixel sidebar, which is why this tool asks you for your text height.
Why does my thumbnail text look fine here and unreadable on YouTube?
Because you are looking at it around 1280 pixels wide and your viewers are not. A sidebar suggestion renders at roughly 168 pixels and a mobile search row at around 246. Text that is 40 pixels tall in a 1280-wide frame becomes about 5 pixels tall in the sidebar, which is not text any more, just texture. The working rule is roughly 14 device pixels of height to stay readable, so in a 1280-wide frame your largest text needs to be about 107 pixels tall to survive the smallest surface. Three or four words at that size, and no more.
What covers the bottom-right corner?
The duration badge. It appears on every surface that shows a video length, it is always in that corner, and it is opaque. This tool dims that region so you can see it before publishing. The same applies to the progress bar on a video you have partly watched, which sits along the very bottom edge.
Should I use PNG or JPEG?
JPEG. A 1280×720 PNG of a photograph typically lands around 2 MB or more and will be refused, whereas the same image as a quality-90 JPEG comes in under 250 KB and looks the same at the sizes anyone sees it. PNG is the right answer for flat graphics and screenshots with sharp text, but a thumbnail is almost never flat, and YouTube re-encodes what you upload regardless.
What size is a Shorts cover?
1080×1920, the same 9:16 as a story. The catch is that it is shown full-frame while playing but cropped to roughly 3:4 in the Shorts shelf, and the title, channel name and action buttons cover the lower and right portions. This tool draws all of it, and the safe area works out to about 75 percent of the frame.
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