Free tools

Make a YouTube thumbnail at the right size

Crop any picture to YouTube’s 16:9 thumbnail, or the 9:16 Shorts one, and save a file small enough to upload from your phone.

Drop your image here

or browse your files

JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF or BMP. No sign-up.

Size
Selection in pixels

Drag the box or its handles, or use the arrow keys on it. The shape stays locked while you resize.

Save as

Near identical to the original.

Nothing is uploaded. The saved copy starts fresh: location, camera details and other hidden data don’t come along.

  • No ads
  • No sign-up
  • No watermark
  • No daily limit
  • Nothing uploaded

Several steps, or a whole batch? Chain this with other tools in a Workflow and run them in one go.

The size YouTube asks for

YouTube Help, read on 24 September 2026, recommends 3840 × 2160 for video thumbnails and 2160 × 3840 for Shorts, with at least 640 pixels of width (of height, for Shorts). It asks for as large as possible because the thumbnail is also the preview in embedded players. Few photos are that big: in our tests, four of five public photos had to be enlarged to reach it.

The 2 MB limit

From the phone app a video thumbnail must be under 2 MB; from a computer the limit is 50 MB. The switch under the quality slider keeps the JPG under 2 MB by lowering the quality only as far as it has to, so the same file works from either.

Vertical videos

YouTube says a vertical video with a 16:9 custom thumbnail gets an automatic 4:5 one instead on the home, explore and subscription pages. Your thumbnail still shows in the watch feed and history. For vertical uploads, crop to the Shorts size.

Your pictures stay with you

Everything happens on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and you don’t need an account. Close the tab and it’s all gone.

From our tests

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