Make a YouTube Thumbnail (1280 × 720)
Make a YouTube thumbnail in minutes: turn any image into 1280 × 720, add a blurred or custom background and a bold title. Free, in your browser, no upload.
EditorGuideNew in v1.0
YouTube thumbnails are 1280 × 720 pixels (16:9). The image editor has a preset for exactly that, so you never have to calculate anything.
Steps#
- Drop your image into the upload area and click Edit.
- Open Size and choose YouTube thumbnail (1280 × 720).
- Choose how the image fills the frame:
- Fill frame crops it to 16:9 and keeps the important part.
- Blurred background keeps the whole image and fills the sides with a blurred copy. Make the image smaller and drag it to one side: that leaves room for the title and keeps faces visible.
- Background image puts your image on a picture of your choice.
- In Background, raise Darken or Blur so the title will stand out. A dark gradient under Color overlay works well too.
- In Text & images, click Title and type your text. Keep it short: two or three words per line. Drag it into the free area, resize it with a corner, and pick a font and color. Add a second title in an accent color, like yellow, for the key word.
- Optional: click Image to add your logo or a face cut-out. Tip: remove its background first with AI background removal.
- Click Save, pick an output format and convert.
💡Which format?
YouTube accepts JPG, PNG and GIF thumbnails up to 2 MB. JPEG at quality 85 is a safe choice. Use Target a specific file size if your thumbnail is too big.
Same idea, other sizes#
The same steps work for every preset in Size:
| Use | Size |
|---|---|
| YouTube Shorts, Reels, TikTok, stories | 1080 × 1920 |
| Instagram post | 1080 × 1080 |
| Instagram portrait | 1080 × 1350 |
| X post | 1600 × 900 |
| Link preview (Open Graph) | 1200 × 630 |
| GitHub social preview | 1280 × 640 |
| YouTube channel banner (2K) | 2560 × 1440 |