YouTube thumbnail, no crop
YouTube asks for 16:9 video thumbnails at least 640 pixels wide. Put any photo on a 1280 x 720 canvas with every edge kept, fill the sides with blur or a color, and save a JPG under 2 MB, all on your device.
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Convert Open a photo first, then pick the next step. Your edit carries over and stays on this device. YouTube Help asks for a 16:9 image at least 640 pixels wide and recommends 3840 x 2160 pixels for a video thumbnail. It names JPG and PNG, and the file must stay under 2 MB when you upload on mobile, or 50 MB on a computer. We start at 1280 x 720: it is 16:9, twice the minimum width, sharp from almost any phone photo, and we keep the JPG under 2 MB so it uploads from a phone too.
| Video thumbnail | Shorts thumbnail | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | 16:9 | 9:16 |
| Size YouTube recommends | 3840 x 2160 px | 2160 x 3840 px |
| Smallest allowed | 640 px wide | 640 px tall |
| Formats | JPG or PNG | JPG or PNG |
| File size on mobile | Under 2 MB | Not available: add Shorts thumbnails on a computer |
| File size on a computer | Under 50 MB | Under 50 MB |
| Account | Verified | Verified |
Sizes here: 1280 x 720 (default), 1920 x 1080, 3840 x 2160 and a 1080 x 1920 Shorts thumbnail. Type any other size in Width and Height. Podcast playlists use 1:1 squares instead. Source: YouTube Help, add custom thumbnails, checked 23 October 2026.
A 16:9 thumbnail is wider than almost every photo, so keeping the whole picture leaves room at the sides. This is how much of the thumbnail is new for common shapes, and what we suggest filling it with. The shares are simple arithmetic, so they hold at 1280 x 720 or 3840 x 2160.
| Your photo | Shape | Photo on 1280 x 720 | New area | Fill we suggest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phone photo, upright | 3:4 | 540 x 720 | 58% | Blur or Color |
| Full-screen photo or screenshot | 9:16 | 405 x 720 | 68% | Blur or Color |
| Camera portrait | 2:3 | 480 x 720 | 63% | Blur or Color |
| Portrait post | 4:5 | 576 x 720 | 55% | Blur or Color |
| Square | 1:1 | 720 x 720 | 44% | Blur, or Smart fill on plain sky or walls |
| Phone photo, sideways | 4:3 | 960 x 720 | 25% | Smart fill, Mirror or Blur |
| Camera landscape | 3:2 | 1080 x 720 | 16% | Smart fill or Stretch |
| Widescreen | 16:9 | 1280 x 720 | 0% | Nothing to fill |
| Ultrawide | 21:9 | 1280 x 549 | 24%, above and below | Blur or Color |
A blurred, slightly darkened copy of your photo fills the sides, so its colors run to the edge. It is the right choice for an upright phone photo, where the new sides are wider than the photo itself. Raise Blur for a smoother backdrop.
Plain sides in white, black, any color you pick, or Match edges for a tone taken from the photo. A plain side is also the easiest place to put a title.
Mirror reflects the edges and Stretch extends the outermost pixels. Both suit plain studio backdrops, gradients and skies, and finish instantly.
Smart fill runs LaMa, an open inpainting model, in your browser, and Texture fill rebuilds the sides from patches of your own photo. They are best for small gaps, like a 4:3 or 3:2 photo that needs slim sides. Across the wide sides of an upright photo they tend to repeat or smear, so pick Blur or Color there. The first Smart fill downloads the model once, about 62 MB.
Every fill runs on your device. Your photo is not uploaded.
YouTube shows the video's length in a small dark box in the bottom right corner of the thumbnail. Leave Video length box on to see where it falls on yours, and keep faces, logos and words out of the dashed corner. The previews under the tool show your thumbnail 500, 320 and 168 pixels wide, so you can check that a title still reads when it is small.
Our measurement: in YouTube search results in a desktop browser window 1920 pixels wide, signed out, on 20 October 2026, thumbnails were 500 x 281 pixels and the length box was 20 pixels tall, 8 pixels in from the right and bottom edges, and about 48 pixels wide for a two minute video. On a 1280 x 720 thumbnail that is roughly 122 x 51 pixels, 20 pixels in from the corner. Longer videos get a wider box, so the dashed corner leaves room for hour-long lengths. YouTube changes its layout from time to time, and phones and TVs may differ.
Next, add your title: choose Add text under Continue with this photo and the thumbnail carries over at the same size, on your device. If you made a 3840 x 2160 thumbnail, the file with text may be over 2 MB, so upload that one from a computer.
Custom thumbnails need a verified account, and YouTube Help says changes can take a while to appear and that a channel can upload only a limited number of custom thumbnails each day. Testing thumbnails? Test & compare takes up to three, and if any of them is smaller than 1280 x 720, YouTube downscales all of them to 854 x 480, so keep every test thumbnail at least 1280 x 720. Thumbnails must follow YouTube's Community Guidelines.
Sources: Add custom thumbnails on YouTube (YouTube Help), Test & compare thumbnails (YouTube Help), Verify your YouTube account (YouTube Help), Thumbnails policy (YouTube Help). Checked 23 October 2026. uncrop.si is not affiliated with YouTube or Google.
16:9, at least 640 pixels wide. YouTube Help recommends 3840 x 2160 pixels, and 1280 x 720 is the common size that meets the rules with a small file. Shorts thumbnails are 9:16, with 2160 x 3840 recommended and at least 640 pixels tall, and podcast playlists use 1:1. This page makes 1280 x 720 by default and also has 1920 x 1080, 3840 x 2160 and Shorts sizes.
Open it in the tool above. The whole photo is placed at full height on a 1280 x 720 canvas, and the empty sides are filled with a blurred copy of the photo. Keep Blur, or choose Color for plain sides, then download. For an upright phone photo the new sides cover more than half of the thumbnail, so blur or a color looks cleaner than made-up scenery.
Yes. It is 16:9 and twice the 640 pixel minimum. YouTube now recommends 3840 x 2160, so choose the 4K size when your photo is large and you upload from a computer. If you use Test & compare, YouTube Help says that when any test thumbnail is smaller than 1280 x 720, all of them are downscaled to 854 x 480.
Download a JPG here with Keep under 2 MB ticked. We lower the JPG quality only as far as needed, and the message after the download shows the final size. YouTube Help lists 2 MB as the limit for video thumbnails uploaded on mobile and 50 MB on a computer. A PNG cannot be squeezed the same way, so a large PNG can be over 2 MB; JPG or PNG explains the difference.
First check that the account is verified: YouTube asks for phone verification before custom thumbnails. Also check the limits in YouTube Help: 2 MB on mobile or 50 MB on a computer, JPG or PNG, a daily limit on how many custom thumbnails a channel can upload, and the Community Guidelines. After a change, YouTube says the new thumbnail can take time to appear.
9:16. YouTube Help recommends 2160 x 3840 pixels, at least 640 pixels tall, and custom Shorts thumbnails can only be added in YouTube Studio on a computer from a verified account. Pick YouTube Shorts thumbnail 9:16 (1080 x 1920) in Platform size, or type 2160 x 3840. YouTube also says a vertical video with a 16:9 custom thumbnail gets an automatic 4:5 thumbnail on the home, explore and subscription pages.
There isn't one: YouTube reads pixels, not centimeters. If an app insists on a physical size, 1280 x 720 pixels at 96 pixels per inch works out to 33.87 x 19.05 cm (13.33 x 7.5 inches), but only the pixels matter when you upload.
Not if the photo is big enough. Your photo is never cropped or stretched; it is scaled to fit and saved as a high quality JPG or a PNG. A photo shorter than 720 pixels, or narrower than 1280 for a wide one, has to be enlarged, and the tool tells you when it is enlarged by more than 1.5 times, so start from the largest copy you have.
Making channel art? Resize an image for a YouTube banner, with the safe area shown. Need another shape? Use change aspect ratio without cropping, make a tall photo wide with portrait to landscape, or post the same picture whole with Instagram no crop.
Add text to an image Captions, labels and outlined text on any image. 
YouTube banner resizer Fit any image on a 2560 x 1440 channel banner, see the safe area and save under 6 MB. New 
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