Video thumbnails

Video thumbnails let your audience view a quick snapshot of your video. You can choose from the options YouTube automatically generates, or upload your own custom image.

Video thumbnails – some recommendations

The ideal thumbnail effectively captures the essence of your entire video within a single image, thereby increasing its clickability.

Please be aware that there is a limit on the number of custom thumbnails a channel can upload per day. If you encounter an error message stating "Daily custom thumbnail limit reached" when trying to upload a thumbnail, retry after 24 hours.

For further information on how create a thumbnail view YouTube’s help page on custom video thumbnails.

Some guidelines for crafting video thumbnails

  1. Your thumbnail file should be no smaller than 1680x945px at 72dpi resolution.
  2. The ratio should be 16 : 9.
  3. File formats can be JPG, GIF, or PNG.
  4. Please make sure your final upload stays below 2 MB file size.
  5. Ensure the HARTMANN ellipse is displayed in the correct size, position and colour. Our HARTMANN Video Thumbnail Template below will make production easy.
  6. Keep the design of your thumbnail simple, avoiding excessive complexity.
  7. Apply the “rule of thirds” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds) to create interesting images.
  8. Measure the effectiveness of your thumbnails for different audiences by looking at at your metrics in YouTube Analytics.

For further information get in touch

HARTMANN Branding Support

Please email us at branding.support@hartmann.info