Resize an Image for YouTube Thumbnail
1280 × 720 pixels — the exact size YouTube Thumbnail expects.
The dimensions
1280 × 720 pixels, an aspect ratio of about 1.78:1. 1280 × 720 is the recommended size; the minimum accepted width is 640 pixels and the maximum file size is 2 MB.
Crop, and what you will lose
Thumbnails are displayed small, so large text and a single clear subject read far better than a detailed scene.
Thumbnails are judged at 320 pixels wide
The subscribed-feed and sidebar renditions are around 320 pixels wide, and the home feed is smaller still. Text that is legible at 1280 pixels is often an unreadable smudge at 320, so the useful test is to shrink the finished image to a third of its size and check whether the subject and any words still read. Three or four words at most, set large, in the upper half.
How to crop it here
Selecting cover scales your image uniformly until it fills the 1280 × 720 rectangle, then trims the overflow from the centre. Contain would leave empty bands instead, which is wrong for an image meant to fill a frame, and stretch would distort faces.
Why this runs in your browser
The file is read from your disk by the browser, decoded with the browser's own codecs, and re-encoded in this tab. No upload request is made, nothing is queued on a server, and closing the tab leaves no copy anywhere. You can verify this in the network panel while it works.
How to use it
- Drop the image on the drop zone.
- Choose the YouTube Thumbnail preset, or type 1280 and 720 directly.
- Set cover mode so the frame is filled without distortion.
- Check the crop keeps the subject centred, then download.
Worth knowing
- Target dimensions are 1280 × 720 pixels, ratio 1.78:1.
- Used for video thumbnails.
- Cover fills the frame and crops the overflow; contain letterboxes instead.
- Aspect ratio is preserved in every mode except stretch.
Limitations
- Cropping is from the centre — frame the photo before uploading if the subject is off-centre.
- Upscaling beyond the original size adds no detail.
- Very small sources will look soft at 1280 pixels wide.
- Platforms change their internal dimensions without notice; these are current published figures.