How to Get the Thumbnail URL of Any YouTube Video

Every YouTube video's thumbnail is hosted at a predictable URL. If you know the video ID, you can construct the direct image URL for any thumbnail in any resolution — no tools needed.

This is useful for developers embedding thumbnails, bloggers referencing YouTube content, or anyone who needs the direct image link rather than downloading the file.

Step 1: Find the Video ID

The video ID is an 11-character string that uniquely identifies every YouTube video. Here's where to find it in different URL formats:

In all examples above, the video ID is dQw4w9WgXcQ.

Step 2: Construct the Thumbnail URL

YouTube thumbnails follow this URL pattern:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/{QUALITY}.jpg

Replace {VIDEO_ID} with the video ID and {QUALITY} with one of these options:

Example URLs

For video ID dQw4w9WgXcQ:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg
https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/sddefault.jpg
https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg
https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/mqdefault.jpg
https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/default.jpg

Paste any of these URLs directly into your browser to see (and save) the thumbnail image.

Alternative URL Format

There's an older URL format that also works:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/{QUALITY}.jpg

Both img.youtube.com and i.ytimg.com serve the same images. The img.youtube.com format is generally preferred as it's the more widely recognized domain.

Numbered Thumbnails

YouTube also generates three auto-selected frame thumbnails for every video:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/0.jpg   (same as hqdefault)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/1.jpg   (frame thumbnail 1)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/2.jpg   (frame thumbnail 2)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/{VIDEO_ID}/3.jpg   (frame thumbnail 3)

Thumbnails 1, 2, and 3 are auto-selected frames from different points in the video. Thumbnail 0 is the same as hqdefault.jpg.

Handling Missing Thumbnails

Not every video has all resolutions available:

• maxresdefault.jpg — Only available if the creator uploaded a custom thumbnail or the video is HD. Shows a grey placeholder if unavailable.
• sddefault.jpg — Available for most videos, but some older ones may not have it.
• hqdefault.jpg — Available for virtually all videos. This is the safest fallback.

Using Thumbnail URLs in HTML

To embed a YouTube thumbnail on a webpage:

<img
  src="https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg"
  alt="Video thumbnail"
  width="480"
  height="360"
  loading="lazy"
>

For a responsive version with max-resolution that falls back gracefully:

<picture>
  <source
    srcset="https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg"
    type="image/jpeg">
  <img
    src="https://img.youtube.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg"
    alt="Video thumbnail"
    loading="lazy">
</picture>

Skip the URL Juggling — Use ThumbSaver

If you'd rather not construct URLs manually, ThumbSaver does this automatically. Paste any YouTube URL and it shows all available thumbnail resolutions with download links — and it works with regular videos, Shorts, and all URL formats.