YouTube video thumbnails sizes and formats

youtube-video-thumbnails-sizes-and-formats.md

Note: YouTube is serving thumbnails from 2 servers:

• //img.youtube.com
• //i.ytimg.com

Examples are with //i.ytimg.com server just because it’s shorter, no other particular reason. You can use both.

• Player Background Thumbnail (480x360):

  WebP
  //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/0.webp
  
  JPG
  //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/0.jpg
  

• Video frames thumbnails (120x90)

  WebP:
  Start: //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/1.webp
  Middle: //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/2.webp
  End: //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/3.webp
  
  JPG:
  Start: //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/1.jpg
  Middle: //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/2.jpg
  End: //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/3.jpg
  

• Lowest quality thumbnail (120x90)

  WebP
  //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/default.webp
  
  JPG
  //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/default.jpg
  

• Medium quality thumbnail (320x180)

  WebP
  //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/mqdefault.webp
  
  JPG
  //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/mqdefault.jpg
  

• High quality thumbnail (480x360)

  WebP
  //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/hqdefault.webp
  
  JPG
  //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/hqdefault.jpg
  

• Standard quality thumbnail (640x480)

  WebP
  //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/sddefault.webp
  
  JPG
  //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/sddefault.jpg
  

• Unscaled thumbnail resolution

  WebP
  //i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/maxresdefault.webp
  
  JPG
  //i.ytimg.com/vi/<YouTube_Video_ID_HERE>/maxresdefault.jpg