YouTube Thumbnail Downloader

Download thumbnails from YouTube videos, shorts, and live streams.

YouTube Thumbnail Downloader adds a "Download Thumbnail" button directly on YouTube pages, so you can save a video's thumbnail image without leaving the page, opening a new tab, or copying URLs into another tool. HOW IT WORKS Open any YouTube video, Short, or live stream. On watch pages the button appears in the row beneath the player, next to the channel name. On Shorts it appears in the action bar along the right side of the reel, and follows you from one reel to the next as you scroll. Click it once. The image is saved straight to your downloads folder as a JPG file, named after the video ID so that files from different videos never overwrite each other. The button itself reports what happened: it shows the download in progress, confirms when the file is saved, and says so plainly if a video has no thumbnail available. WHICH SIZE YOU GET YouTube generates several sizes of every thumbnail, but not every video has all of them. The extension checks them from largest to smallest and saves the first one that actually exists: - 1280x720 (maximum resolution) - 640x480 (standard definition) - 480x360 (high quality) - 320x180 (medium quality) This means you always get the sharpest version YouTube holds for that particular video, without having to guess which sizes were generated for it. If you want to compare the sizes before saving, a second button next to the first one opens tubeupgrade.com with the video already filled in, where every available size is shown side by side. NO SETUP REQUIRED There is no popup to open, no settings page to configure, and no account or sign-in of any kind. Install it, and the button is on your next YouTube page. Moving between videos needs no page reload, and the button reappears on its own after YouTube redraws the page. COMMON QUESTIONS Why did I get a smaller image than 1280x720? That video never had a larger version generated, which is common with older uploads and with videos recorded at lower resolutions. The extension saves the largest one that exists. Where does the file go? To your browser's usual downloads folder, under the video ID with a _thumbnail suffix. PERMISSIONS AND PRIVACY The extension runs only on youtube.com, and reads only the video ID from the address of the page you are on. It requests access to img.youtube.com because that is the public server the image is fetched from. It collects no personal data, stores nothing, and sends nothing anywhere. The image travels from YouTube's server to your computer and nowhere else. Thumbnails belong to their respective creators. Please respect copyright and the YouTube Terms of Service when using downloaded images.