How to download Youtube Thumbnails

Today I’m going to show you lovelies how to download the thumbnails from a youtube video. There are potentially 6 different thumbnails that you can grab depending on whether or not the video has it’s own custom thumbnail.

1. Auto-generated thumbnail 1 (120×90)
2. Auto-generated thumbnail 2 (120×90)
3. Auto-generated thumbnail 3 (120×90)
4. Custom thumbnail (320×180)
5. Custom thumbnail (480×360)
6. Custom thumbnail (1280×720) or (1920×1080)

All you need to do to download the thumbnail of your choice is to have the video id, and the right url.

Getting the video ID

The ID of your video is the part that comes after v= so if the video thumbnail you want’s watch page url is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8n1AxWwcrE

Then the ID would be:

h8n1AxWwcrE

Armed with the ID you can insert it into the urls below in place of VIDID, copy the url into the address bar, hit enter and you should see the thumbnail for that video.

1. Auto-generated thumbnail 1 (120×90)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDID/1.jpg

2. Auto-generated thumbnail 2 (120×90)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDID/2.jpg

3. Auto-generated thumbnail 3 (120×90)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDID/3.jpg

4. Custom thumbnail (320×180)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDID/mqdefault.jpg

5. Custom thumbnail (480×360)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDID/0.jpg

6. Custom thumbnail (1280×720 or 1920×1080)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDID/maxresdefault.jpg

Saving the Thumbnail

If you want to save the thumbnail to your computer, right click on the image then click Save Image As. When you get the save dialog box enter in a new name for your thumbnail if you want to name the file something meaningful, hit save and boom! You’re done!

If you have any problems with this method let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to give you a hand.