Reserves are simulations.
Duration badges and hover actions vary across devices, layouts and states. Adjust the width and margin to test your own composition. These are not YouTube-certified safe-zone dimensions.
BEFORE YOU PUBLISH
Give the important
bits some room.
See what gets covered. Read it small.
Check your thumbnail before it leaves your browser.
No image loaded
Your next thumbnail
belongs here.
PNG, JPEG or WebP · up to15 MB
Processed locally. Never uploaded.
Import an image or try the local example.
Exports the working canvas and selected guides.
Your original file stays unchanged.
CHANGE YOUR POINT OF VIEW
Small is the
real test.
No readability score is invented. Look at the text and focal point yourself.
A guide,
with its assumptions.
Center cropping can remove the edges.
The main study center-crops your source to16:9 without stretching. The4:5 comparison shows a different composition; it cannot predict the image YouTube generates from a vertical video.
Keep the original for publishing.
The download is an annotated1280×720 study, not a guaranteed upload-ready thumbnail. Check YouTube’s current size and file limits for your upload device; they differ between mobile and desktop.
Current YouTube thumbnail guidance ↗Primary guidance checked2026-10-05