How To Get YouTube Thumbnail URL/Web Address
Please note that this post is over a year old and may contain outdated information.
YouTube stores several image thumbnails for every video. These are used for video previews and can be extracted and used elsewhere with one of several different web addresses (URLs).
In each of these web addresses, replace VIDEOID with the eleven character long YouTube video ID.
The default thumbnails are chosen by the video uploader from one of the three available thumbnails. The default is the preview image you see on the YouTube search page or when a video is embedded (but not playing yet).
In each of these web addresses, replace VIDEOID with the eleven character long YouTube video ID.
| Dimensions | Web Address | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 120x90 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/1.jpg | Small thumbnail 1 |
| 120x90 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/2.jpg | Small thumbnail 2 |
| 120x90 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/3.jpg | Small thumbnail 3 |
| 480x360 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/0.jpg | Default large thumbnail |
| 120x90 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/default.jpg | Default small thumbnail |
| 320x180 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/mqdefault.jpg | Default medium quality thumbnail |
| 480x360 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/hqdefault.jpg | Default high quality thumbnail |
| 1280x720 | http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEOID/maxresdefault.jpg | Default max resolution thumbnail (only available if video has 720p option) |
The default thumbnails are chosen by the video uploader from one of the three available thumbnails. The default is the preview image you see on the YouTube search page or when a video is embedded (but not playing yet).