YouTube maxresdefault thumbnails

Question

I need to use the maxresdefault version of my YouTube video thumbnails for a website, however upon developing the code to achieve this I have found that not all of my videos have these thumbnails available, despite the videos all being 1080p.

Is there a way to automatically generate new high-res thumbnails for all of my videos?

score 47 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 08 '22 at 21:25

47

You can use YouTube Data API to retrieve video thumbnails, caption, description, rating, statistics and more. With the YouTube Data API, you can add a variety of YouTube features to your application.

For the high quality version of the thumbnail use a url similar to this:

http://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/hqdefault.jpg

There is also a medium quality version of the thumbnail, using a url similar to the HQ:

http://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/mqdefault.jpg

For the standard definition version of the thumbnail, use a url similar to this:

http://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/sddefault.jpg

For the maximum resolution version of the thumbnail use a url similar to this:

http://img.youtube.com/vi/<insert-youtube-video-id-here>/maxresdefault.jpg

Here's the Official Google Documentation for Youtube API https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/thumbnails

Here's where I get my answer: How do I get a YouTube video thumbnail from the YouTube API?

edited Nov 08 '22 at 21:25

Benjamin Loison

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answered Jan 14 '16 at 08:33

Android Enthusiast

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I need to use the maxresdefault.jpg, however for a bunch of my videos they simply do not exist. How can I fix this? – Daniel Keeble Jan 14 '16 at 15:52
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This does not really answer OP's question..it's only a (useful) collection of data about different YT thumbnails – Erenor Paz Sep 08 '16 at 14:51
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@ErenorPaz Unfortunately, you are correct. The only way I solved this was to re-generate a thumbnail for every video that was missing a maxres version. – Daniel Keeble Sep 29 '16 at 10:27
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I suppose that was the only thing to do :) :) – Erenor Paz Sep 29 '16 at 15:11
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Looks like the format has been changed to: `https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp//maxresdefault.webp` – Mr. Polywhirl Jan 03 '18 at 14:08
@Mr.Polywhirl, please post the latest format/answer for others know about it. thank you – Android Enthusiast Dec 04 '19 at 18:11
@AndroidEnthusiast I added my response. – Thanks – Mr. Polywhirl Dec 04 '19 at 18:29
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On a 1080p video, the maximum resolution I can get for the thumbnail is 720p. Is there no way to get the 1080p version? Example: https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/vIRZfVOwKkE/maxresdefault.webp – baptx Mar 08 '22 at 14:22

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 09 '18 at 23:25

I just ran into the same issue while working on a new website project using videojs-youtube. Some of my videos simply didn't have a maxresdefault.jpg and were thus throwing an error. A thread on the YouTube Help Forums resolved it.

Simply go into the Video Manager (found under Creator Studio), change the thumbnail to one of the original 3 defaults generated by YouTube, save it, leave the page, and then change back to the original thumbnail. Somehow, this generated the maxresdefault.jpg for me and fixed it. I'm going to assume this is a bug on YouTube's end where it just doesn't generate the image.

I also discovered that I was using a custom (uploaded) thumbnail that was only 640 pixels wide instead of 1920. — Ryan, Sep 03 '19 at 21:41

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 04 '19 at 18:27

Updated as on December 2019.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/<VIDEO_ID>/maxresdefault.webp
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/<VIDEO_ID>/maxresdefault.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/<VIDEO_ID>/hqdefault.jpg

You can add a bookmarklet to your browser:

javascript:window.open('https://i.ytimg.com/vi/' + /^.*(youtu.be\/|v\/|embed\/|watch\?|youtube.com\/user\/[^#]*#([^\/]*?\/)*)\??v?=?([^#\&\?]*).*/.exec(window.location)[3] + '/maxresdefault.jpg', target = "_blank")

If you click on it, while viewing a YouTube video, it will open the thumbnail image for the video in a new tab.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 13 '23 at 04:13

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Maxres thumbnail is not created instanly on Youtube apis, you should check for maxres availability and use the standard size in the meantime

answered Jan 13 '23 at 04:13

Mariano Argañaraz

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score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 27 '19 at 00:42

Mr. Polywhirl posted "Looks like the format has been changed to: https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.webp"

I've been seeing that myself for most new(ish) youtube videos. After about 5 minutes of trying to change it so that renders it as a jpg instead of a webp, I found this method.

WEBP VERSION https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.webp

JPG VERSION https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.jpg

YouTube maxresdefault thumbnails

5 Answers5