YouTube Thumbnail Downloader
Paste any YouTube link and get its thumbnail in every size YouTube stores, up to 1280×720. No sign-up, no watermark, no limits.
Works with normal links, youtu.be short links, Shorts, live and embed URLs, or a bare 11-character video ID.
Give the video a push
A good thumbnail gets the click. A video that already looks watched gets it more often. Both are paid, both start within the hour, and neither needs your password.
How to download a YouTube thumbnail
- Copy the link of the video from YouTube, from the address bar or the Share button.
- Paste it in the box above and press Get thumbnails.
- Every size that exists for that video appears. Press Download on the one you want.
The file is saved straight to your device as a JPG, at the exact size YouTube stores it. Nothing is re-encoded, so quality is not touched.
Your lookups never reach us
This tool has no backend. When you press the button, your browser talks directly to YouTube's image servers and to YouTube's public oEmbed endpoint. The link you paste is never sent to ytkit, is never logged, and is never stored, because there is nothing here to send it to. That also means the download runs at your connection speed rather than through somebody else's proxy.
Thumbnail sizes YouTube stores
| Name | Size | File | Always available? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max resolution | 1280 × 720 | maxresdefault.jpg | No, HD uploads only |
| Standard definition | 640 × 480 | sddefault.jpg | Usually |
| High quality | 480 × 360 | hqdefault.jpg | Yes |
| Medium quality | 320 × 180 | mqdefault.jpg | Yes |
| Default | 120 × 90 | default.jpg | Yes |
The tool checks each one and shows you only the sizes that actually exist for that video, so you never end up saving a grey placeholder.
Questions
Why is the 1280×720 version missing on some videos?
YouTube only generates maxresdefault.jpg when the video itself was uploaded in HD. Older uploads, and anything published below 720p, stop at 480×360. There is no way to recover a bigger version, because YouTube never made one. When that happens this tool simply does not show the size, instead of handing you a broken image.
Can I download the thumbnail of a private or unlisted video?
Unlisted videos work if you have the link, because their thumbnails sit on the same public image servers. Private videos do not: YouTube does not serve their thumbnails to anyone who is not signed in as the owner, and nothing can get around that.
Is it legal to download a YouTube thumbnail?
Saving a thumbnail for reference, research or commentary is generally fine. Republishing someone else's thumbnail as your own, or using it to make people think a video is yours, is not: the image belongs to whoever made it. This tool just gives you the file that YouTube already serves publicly, what you do with it afterwards is on you.
Do you keep the images or the links I paste?
No. There is no server on this page to keep anything. Your browser fetches the images directly from YouTube. We do count anonymous page visits so we know which tools people use, and that is all.
Does it work on Shorts?
Yes. Shorts use the same thumbnail system as ordinary videos, so a /shorts/ link works exactly like a /watch?v= one. Note that thumbnails are stored in 16:9 even for vertical videos, so you will see the frame with the sides filled in.