12 Best YouTube Thumbnail Downloaders (2024)

Making a YouTube thumbnail – the still cover image that appears on a YouTube video before you click or tap on it – can be tricky to do right on your own.

First off, it must be a certain size. YouTube recommends that each thumbnail should have a resolution of 1280×720 pixels, be uploaded in JPG, GIF, or PNG format, and have an aspect ratio of 16:9. 

Second, it must grab your viewers’ attention. To do that, you have to find the right combination of visual elements, including a unique title or call to action (CTA) and dynamic background. That can be a challenging task, especially if you have little to no graphic design skills.

Fortunately for you, many YouTube creators before you have already perfected their thumbnail designs. Rather than reinvent the wheel, you may want to find a pre-existing thumbnail design that perfectly matches your channel’s vibe and aesthetic. 

But since there’s no link to the thumbnail in the YouTube video player or any way to screenshot it, we have to resort to other measures to download a copy of it.

Are YouTube Thumbnails Copyright Free?

Before you download anything on the internet for your own use, it’s important to find out if it’s copyrighted first. That goes for YouTube thumbnails, as well. 

The good news is there’s little chance of getting hit with a copyright claim over reproducing a thumbnail design. Thumbnail designs are so common that it would be almost impossible for a creator to claim that they were the first originator of it. 

However, you should avoid using the original thumbnail creator’s images of themselves, screenshots of their video, or any logos that they may have included in the thumbnail you want to copy. If, by any chance, they copyrighted any of those images, you could get hit with a copyright claim for using them. That would be terrible for your account!

To avoid that scenario, we recommend you simply replace those visual elements with your own.

2 Ways To Download YouTube Thumbnails

As we mentioned at the drop, there isn’t a native way to download a thumbnail from a video on the YouTube platform. The thumbnail URL is part of the hidden metadata that describes a video to the algorithm, meaning the public can’t see it.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get YouTube thumbnails to copy and recreate for your own channel! You just have to use alternative download methods.

Here Are Two Ways To Download YouTube Thumbnails.

Some YouTube thumbnail downloaders require a YouTube video ID instead of the URL. If that’s the case, or if you’re using the custom URL method, you can find the ID in the URL following v=.

Best Online YouTube Thumbnail Downloaders and Apps

Thumbnail downloaders are able to provide you with the thumbnail from the YouTube URL you paste into the tool in different sizes. For that reason, you may want to use this method instead of the custom URL.

Here are the 12 best free online YouTube thumbnail downloader websites, browser extensions, and apps (all of which can also provide you with a YouTube Shorts thumbnail download, as well). 

Websites

Chrome Browser Extensions

Apps

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Making your own YouTube thumbnail from scratch can be agonizing and time-consuming. But why waste your time when other creators have already developed perfect thumbnail designs? 

Though you want to avoid plagiarizing their work, downloading copies of other YouTubers’ video thumbnails can help you come up with a similar, but still unique thumbnail design of your own in record time. 

Use any of the best YouTube thumbnail downloaders in this article to initiate the download fast, so you can start making an amazing video thumbnail that gets you more views ASAP!