Resize an image for a YouTube thumbnail
YouTube wants thumbnails at 1280 × 720 (16:9) and under 2 MB. Miss the ratio and the uploader crops for you; miss the size cap and it refuses the file outright.
This page opens the resizer preset to 1280 × 720. If your export lands over YouTube's 2 MB cap, run it through the compress-to-1MB variant afterwards — thumbnails compress beautifully.
Loading tool…
This is Resize Image preconfigured for this task — open the full tool for every option.
How it works
Select an image to see its current dimensions.
Enter a width/height or percentage, or pick a platform preset (each shows its exact pixels).
Choose fit behaviour: contain, cover (center-crop), or stretch.
Preview the resulting dimensions, then export.
What the tool does
- Resize by exact pixels, percentage, or preset
- Contain, cover, and explicit stretch modes
- Presets for common social and document sizes, labelled with exact dimensions
- High-quality multi-step downscaling for sharp results
- Upscale warning before enlarging beyond the source resolution
How the result is verified
The exported image is re-decoded and its pixel dimensions are compared to your requested dimensions before download is offered.
Frequently asked questions
JPG or PNG for a YouTube thumbnail?
JPG at quality 85+ is almost always right — visually clean at a fraction of PNG's size, comfortably under the 2 MB cap. PNG only makes sense for flat graphics with hard text edges.
My thumbnail is over 2 MB — now what?
Export as JPG rather than PNG, or run the result through the compress-image-to-1MB tool. Both keep everything local.