5 Best and Ideal Size of Youtube Thumbnail for Your Content

Youtube thumbnails are important for your video. It’s like a book cover that will invite the audience to watch the video. To make it look great, users have to know the size of Youtube thumbnail. The size will affect how it looks like as your video cover for the audience.

If users don’t have a good thumbnail, then people won’t clock it in the first place. users will lose the potential of millions of views as well. The very first thing to gain their attention is paying attention to the thumbnail size and the rest is the audience’s decision to continue watching or not.

See also: 5 Great Ways Optimize Ads Youtube to Get Engagement

What Factors and Size of Youtube Thumbnail

1. Ideal Size

Though there’s flexibility to put the picture for your Youtube content’s thumbnail, there’s an ideal size to make the thumbnail look great. Usually, the great result comes if users use 720 pixels talk and 1280 pixels wide, not in inches. Your thumbnail will look clear and invite the viewers to click.

Even though it’s larger than most phone screens, it’s the only ideal size of Youtube thumbnail that will be sharp and crisp. High density screens need this and most people now use HD phone screens because of the technology dynamics of gadget screens.

The thing is if users use lower resolution for your thumbnail, later it gets blurred in the next two or three years. Pixelated thumbnails are avoided because they don’t impress the viewer. Even though your video might be a 4K video, stay with this size to adjust most viewers.

2. Minimum size

However, users are still able to reduce resolution for your Youtube content’s thumbnail. Youtube recommends that it’s gonna be better if it’s 640 pixels. It’s the lowest pixels for the thumbnail or else, the thumbnail image won’t look sharp and ruin the impression from viewers.

Youtube will still be able to accept lower than standard size of Youtube thumbnail. However, the result will be super blur in high density gadgets. Some people have their great resolution device already to watch Youtube even on TV. If Youtube get size of thumbnail lower than minimum, the video is uncomfortable to watch.

3. Size of aspect ratio

Besides the pixel, users have to pay attention to the aspect ratio. The size of Youtube thumbnail usually uses 16:9 ratio or 4:3. This ratio is used to avoid the black part of each side of the video. The excess won’t make it look good. The viewers will think that users are not a pro Youtuber.

Ratio of 16:9 is also recommended because of its high density. It’s the standard aspect ratio for most online usage as well. The phone or gadget screen nowadays mostly uses 16:9 by default. It prevents the blurry image of the thumbnail, especially if users watch from the desktop.

4. Maximum size

Youtube will ask users to have the size of Youtube thumbnail for not more than 2MB. It’s the maximum and Youtube will reject your thumbnail file if it’s more than that. If users have made the picture for a thumbnail and it’s large, try to compress the file online or with an application.

5. File format

The file format is quite flexible but users have to choose one of these options: BMP image, GIF non animated, JPG, JPEG, and PNG. Youtube also supports the latest format that is coming from the iPhone named HEIC since a lot of Youtubers use their iPhone to create content.

For notes, Youtube won’t allow users to send images using RAW files in all extensions. With that issue, users have to convert those raw files into JPG first. Make sure the file format users use to upload has been adjusted by other factors such as size, resolution and aspect ratio.Choosing the right size of Youtube thumbnail is very important. Users have to adjust the thumbnail according to Youtube recommendations because it will affect the impression. Blurry and pixelated images won’t be inviting the viewers as well.