YouTube thumbnails are the cover of your videos, and having an enticing thumbnail could mean the difference between 100 views and 10,000 views.
Thumbnails play a crucial role in teasing potential viewers about the juicy content of your videos.
Since they hold a prominent position for your video, you should always aim to make your thumbnails as visually attractive as possible.
Table of Contents - Best YouTube Thumbnail Grabbers - BoingBoing - Thumbnailsave - Fbutube - Online UniConverter - ThumbnailGrabber - Why create your own thumbnail is important? - Should you use other channel’s thumbnail? - Where to create YouTube thumbnails? - Canva - Crello - Snappa - Visme - Bannersnack
Creating a standalone image from scratch could be troublesome, especially if you don’t have graphic design skills. But you don’t have to worry about it since you can now grab an existing frame from your video and turn it into a gorgeous thumbnail to generate more views.
You can also use grabbed thumbnails as references to make your custom ones – which is always a good thing in the content creation industry.
You can use YouTube thumbnail grabber tools to download other video’s thumbnails or grab from your videos and use them as video covers.
Let’s dive right in.
Best YouTube Thumbnail Grabbers
There are hundreds of YouTube thumbnail grabbers that you can find just by looking them up on Google. But here are our recommendations for the best YouTube thumbnail grabbers.
BoingBoing
BoingBoing is one of the most popular thumbnail grabbers that you can find on Google. It has a simple and barebone user interface (UI) with nothing more than a text field where you can paste a YouTube video URL and click.
Once you have pasted the URL and look for the video’s thumbnail, you will see several high quality thumbnail images from that video.
There will be several size variations that you can choose from, ranging from small to large.
You can simply right-click on the image to save the thumbnails to your computer. It’s a reasonably straightforward tool that does its job very well.
BoingBoing is also one of the faster thumbnail grabbers out there, which can decide for most people.
Thumbnailsave
Thumbnailsave.com is another free tool that you can use to download the thumbnail from the YouTube video with a relatively quick and straightforward process.
Like BoingBoing, you just need to paste the URL to the YouTube video and press Enter. You will see the thumbnails after a few short seconds of waiting.
It will show you several different resolutions for the thumbnail image: a Standard Quality (480p), HD (720p), and Max Resolution (1080p and above).
Saving the thumbnails is also very easy – just right-click on the version of the image you want, and you’ll see the option to save it to your computer.
Fbutube
Fbutube is next in our best YouTube thumbnail downloader recommendations. It offers another straightforward user interface where you only need to paste the URL to the YouTube video.
It generates thumbnails very quickly, and you will also get several more resolution choices than the other tools.
Once you’ve entered the URL and click on Generate, you will see several available thumbnails at different resolutions.
These resolution options are tiny (120p), small (320p), standard (480p), HD (720p), and full HD or higher (1080p and above).
Online UniConverter
Online UniConverter is an all-in-one conversion online tool website that also offers a free YouTube thumbnail grabber tool.
While it’s still as straightforward and user-friendly as other tools, the overall look of UniConverter is much more well-polished and maintained.
Aside from grabbing a thumbnail from other YouTube videos, there’s also an option to create a YouTube thumbnail right below the URL field.
It’s worth keeping in mind that UniConverter is a subsidiary of Wondershare (the company that makes Filmora) – so you will have to create an account before you can start grabbing thumbnails with it.
ThumbnailGrabber
If you’re looking for a tool that only grabs the highest quality thumbnail from a video, ThumbnailGrabber.com could be the perfect one for you.
Other than YouTube, this tool also supports videos from other platforms, including Wistia, DailyMotion, Metacafe, Reddit, and many more.
The user interface is rather plain, with nothing much going on except for the website’s logo and a text field where you can paste the video’s URL.
Once you’ve clicked on Generate, it will show a pop-up window containing the highest quality thumbnail from the video with a download button.
Why create your own thumbnail is important?
As mentioned before, thumbnails are the cover for your YouTube video. If you’ve read any book before, you should know that the content of each book is unique – and so is the range of YouTube videos.
It’s essential that you create your own thumbnail because that’s the only way you can make a cover that represents the content of your video.
Making your own YouTube thumbnail image is not as difficult as you probably imagined. There are now drag-and-drop photo editors that can help you create a visually appealing thumbnail for your videos, even when you don’t know a single thing about graphic design.
There are also several other benefits that you can get from designing an original thumbnail for your videos.
- You get to decide the visual style of your thumbnail.
- You can choose your fonts, color palette, and elements included in the picture.
- You can match it with your channel’s visual identity for better online recognition.
- You can gradually develop your graphic design skills.
Should you use other channel’s thumbnail?
The short and obvious answer is: no, you should never take another video’s thumbnail and use it as yours.
It’s always a good practice to make your thumbnail from scratch or use other royalty-free images to ensure your videos won’t violate YouTube’s copyright guidelines.
You can use other video’s thumbnails if your content aims to react, commentate, or improve it.
Even so, you should always credit the original video as the owner of the said thumbnail. The only time where it’s okay to use other channels’ thumbnails is when there’s a collaboration where both parties agree to share the same thumbnail.
Where to Create YouTube Thumbnails?
There are dozens of free and paid graphic design tools that you can use to create unique YouTube thumbnails. Here are some of the best beginner-friendly tools that you can use to design YouTube thumbnails.
Canva
Canva is a free drag-and-drop image and video editor that you can use to create a YouTube thumbnail quite easily. It has hundreds of ready-to-use YouTube thumbnail templates that you can modify according to your needs.
There is also third-party stock photo site integration from Pexels and Pixabay that you can easily import royalty-free photos into your thumbnail. You can also use pre-made text templates with premium fonts to make your thumbnail even more enticing.
Crello
Crello is another drag-and-drop YouTube thumbnail maker that you can use to create enticing thumbnails.
Their tagline for their thumbnail maker tool is “Create YouTube thumbnails that Get Clicked,” – so each one of their templates is designed to urge potential viewers to click on your video.
You can customize Crello’s thumbnail template with objects, texts, shapes, photos, and animation.
It offers free and paid plans, with the only difference is the number of pre-made assets you can use.
Snappa
Snappa’s online thumbnail maker tool has plenty of stunning templates, high-resolution images, and many other types of assets that you’d need to create a YouTube thumbnail.
The drag-and-drop editor is versatile enough that even a person with zero design knowledge can use it to make awesome graphics.
You can use Snappa for free, but there’s also a paid plan where you’ll get every feature and more assets.
Visme
Visme is a user-friendly YouTube thumbnail maker with hundreds of pre-made templates to choose and edit with its drag-and-drop editor.
You can edit every element in a thumbnail template, so you can easily swap it with other graphics, texts, photos, or shapes that you want.
There are different plans that you can choose from Visme. The free plan allows you to save up to 5 projects, and the premium plans start from $168 per year.
Bannersnack
Bannersnack (now Creatopy) has the most delicious name among all the tools in this list, but it offers much more than just a catchy name.
Its drag-and-drop editor is geared to make designing your thumbnail as effortless as possible.
They have hundreds of designer-made thumbnail templates that you can customize to match your visual style.
You can use Bannersnack for free with up to 10 designs saved at once. Individual premium plans start at $84 per year – which is relatively affordable compared to other options.
Conclusions
The YouTube thumbnail is a critical element that can draw more attention to your videos and generate more views.
It’s okay to grab other video’s thumbnail and use it as references to design one for your videos.
But you should avoid using other channel’s thumbnails at any cost because YouTube could consider it a violation of their guidelines.
Even with zero design skill, you can create original YouTube thumbnails from scratch using the available drag-and-drop tools as we’ve listed for you in this article.
Regardless of which tool you choose from our list, you will be able to make eye-catching YouTube thumbnails without too much hassle.
