YouTube Thumbnail Downloader
Save any YouTube thumbnail — free, all sizes.
Paste a YouTube URL and grab every thumbnail variant the video has — maxres (1280×720), HD, SD, HQ, MQ, default — in JPG or WebP. No signup, no watermark. Thumbnails fetch directly from YouTube’s CDN to your browser.
Paste the YouTube URL or video ID
Drop any youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, or youtube.com/shorts/… link. You can also paste just the 11-character video ID.
See every available size
The tool fetches each thumbnail variant from YouTube's CDN and shows only the ones that exist for that specific video — typically maxres (1280×720), HD, SD, HQ, MQ, and default.
Click Download
Pick any size + format (JPG or WebP) and the file lands in your Downloads folder. No re-encode, no re-compression — bytes are exactly what YouTube serves.
What sizes does YouTube serve?
Every public YouTube video has up to six standard thumbnail files at fixed resolutions, served from the i.ytimg.com CDN:
| Variant | Resolution | Filename | Always available? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max Resolution | 1280×720 | maxresdefault.jpg | No (custom thumb only) |
| HD 720p | 1280×720 | hq720.jpg | Often, newer videos |
| Standard Definition | 640×480 | sddefault.jpg | Most videos |
| High Quality | 480×360 | hqdefault.jpg | Yes |
| Medium Quality | 320×180 | mqdefault.jpg | Yes |
| Default | 120×90 | default.jpg | Yes |
YouTube does not serve native thumbnails above 1280×720. Tools that advertise “4K YouTube thumbnails” are upscaling the 720p file with an interpolator — the underlying data is the same.
JPG vs WebP
YouTube generates a WebP version of every thumbnail at the same resolutions, served from i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/. WebP is roughly 30% smaller than JPG at equivalent visual quality and decodes faster on mobile.
Use JPG when the destination tool doesn’t accept WebP — print pipelines, older CMSes, certain video editors. For web, blog posts, and modern design software, WebP is the better pick.