YouTube Thumbnail Maker

A custom thumbnail is the first thing viewers judge a video by. This maker builds one to YouTube's shape: a 16:9 frame for regular videos or a 9:16 cover for Shorts, with your photo or a gradient behind a big outlined title that shrinks automatically until it fits. Everything is drawn on a canvas in your browser, so your photos are never uploaded.

How to use this tool

1. Optionally choose a background photo; it fills the frame and can be darkened for contrast.
2. Type a short title (Enter makes your own line break) and an optional subtitle.
3. Pick the size, layout, font, colours and outline width.
4. Add a cut-out PNG of yourself or a product if you like; it sits at the bottom right.
5. Press the button and download the JPG. It is stepped down in quality until it is under 2 MB.

Formula

Title size = the largest font size (in whole pixels) at which the wrapped title, plus the subtitle at 42% of that size, fits the text box in at most 5 lines.

The text box is 57% of the width on the left layout, 88% in the centre layout, and the coloured band (bottom 32%) on the bar layout. A cut-out narrows it so text never covers the image. The outline is stroked first, under the fill, so it does not eat into the letters. JPG quality starts at 92% and drops 7 points at a time until the file is under 2,000,000 bytes.

Example

On the default 1280 × 720 frame with the left layout, the text box is about 730 × 576 px. "I Tried Every Free Photo Editor" in Impact usually wraps onto three lines at roughly 150 px. A photo background with 35% darkening and an 8 px black outline typically saves as a JPG of 200–600 KB at 92% quality, well under the 2 MB mobile limit.

What YouTube asks for

YouTube's help page recommends 3840 × 2160 px for video thumbnails and 2160 × 3840 px for Shorts, with a minimum width of 640 px for videos and a minimum height of 640 px for Shorts, in JPG or PNG, 16:9 for videos and 9:16 for Shorts. Thumbnails uploaded from a phone are limited to 2 MB; on a computer the limit is 50 MB. Custom thumbnails need a verified YouTube account, and Shorts thumbnails can currently be added only in YouTube Studio on a computer. 1280 × 720 is still a good, light choice for videos.