Video thumbnail plays the same role as book cover. It is the first impression that attract people to see the content inside. A video with an attractive thumbnail has a bigger chance to gain more viewers.

You might have seen many videos on YouTube with attractive thumbnails and wondering how to create the one on like that.

When uploading a video on YouTube, you can add a custom thumbnail before your video is published. You can create as attractive as possible thumbnail with drawing tool like CorelDraw or image editing app like Photoshop. But, before being able to upload a custom thumbnail from your computer you need to verify your account first. Without doing this you can’t see the Custom thumbnail button. Visit this page to verify your account.

Once you done verifying your account follow these steps to set custom thumbnail in YouTube.

Set custom thumbnail in YouTube

• Assuming you’ve prepared your image for thumbnail, please go to YouTube and login with your account. Click the My channel menu and select Video Manager. Or simply visit this link.

• Specify a video you want to set the thumbnail and click the Edit button.

• From the Info & Settings tab click the Custom thumbnail button and select your preferred thumbnail from your computer. Click the Save changes button once.

To maximize your custom thumbnail, YouTube suggests you to have a 1280×720 image in resolution. Your image should at least has 640 pixels in width while the allowed image formats are JPG, GIF, BMP, and PNG.