How to download a YouTube thumbnail

Three minutes, no software, no account. The same steps work for regular videos, Shorts, live streams and music videos — if it's public, its thumbnails are on YouTube's public image CDN, and this tool builds the addresses for you.

On a computer

1. Copy the video link. On the video's page, copy the address bar URL, or click Share → Copy. Any form works: youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, a Shorts or live link, or just the 11-character video ID.
2. Paste it into ThumbFetch and press Get thumbnails. Five cards appear, one per size, each previewed at its real resolution.
3. Check the badge on the HD card. "Available — actual 1280×720" means a true HD thumbnail exists. "No HD thumbnail for this video" means YouTube only has the small placeholder for that size — pick SD or HQ instead. (Why: the placeholder trap.)
4. Click Download JPG on the size you want. The file saves as VIDEOID-maxresdefault.jpg and so on. If your browser blocks the direct save, the button opens the image in a new tab instead — right-click it and choose Save image as…

On a phone

1. In the YouTube app, open the video, tap Share, then Copy link. For a Short, the share button is on the right edge of the player.
2. Open thumbfetch.pages.dev in your phone browser, paste the link, tap Get thumbnails.
3. Tap Download JPG under a size. On iPhone, if the image opens in a new tab instead, long-press it and choose Save to Photos or Download image; on Android, long-press and choose Download image.

Several videos at once (batch mode)

1. On the downloader, open Batch mode.
2. Paste one link or ID per line — a whole research list is fine, duplicates are removed automatically.
3. Press Get all thumbnails. Each video gets its own set of five cards; lines that aren't recognisable YouTube links are reported back to you, not silently dropped.

Doing it by hand (no tool)

The addresses follow one pattern, which is all this tool automates:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/<VIDEO_ID>/<SIZE>.jpg

where <SIZE> is one of maxresdefault, sddefault, hqdefault, mqdefault or default. Paste that into a browser and save the image. Two warnings from experience: the video ID is case-sensitive, and a "successful" download at the maxres address can still be the 120×90 placeholder — check the saved file's dimensions before you rely on it. Full details on the sizes page.