A YouTube thumbnail is a small image that represents a video on YouTube. It acts as the preview image that viewers see before clicking on the video. A compelling thumbnail can significantly impact a video’s views, as it’s often the first impression viewers get of the video content.
Sizes and Resolutions:
- YouTube provides several thumbnail sizes for each video, including:
- Default:
120x90
pixels. - Medium Quality (MQ):
320x180
pixels. - High Quality (HQ):
480x360
pixels. - Standard Definition (SD):
640x480
pixels. - Maximum Resolution:
1280x720
pixels (HD).
- Default:
URL Formats:
- The thumbnail URLs follow a standard pattern:
-
- Example:
https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/{thumbnail_type}.jpg
{VIDEO_ID}
is the unique identifier for a YouTube video.{thumbnail_type}
can be:default.jpg
mqdefault.jpg
hqdefault.jpg
sddefault.jpg
maxresdefault.jpg
- Example:
Instructions:
- Save the
index.html
andfetch_thumbnail.php
files in the same directory on your web server. - Open the
index.html
file in a browser. - Enter a YouTube URL, click “Get Thumbnails,” and view/download the thumbnails.
-