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YouTube Thumbnail Preview, Where Viewers See It

Drop a thumbnail to see it in search results, a channel's grid, the suggested videos beside the player and a phone's search, at the sizes we measured on youtube.com, with your title cut where YouTube cuts it and the length badge in its corner. The preview runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded unless you take it to the checker.

Shown with the thumbnail and cut where YouTube cuts it: after two lines, three beside the player.

Like 12:04 or 1:02:45. YouTube draws it in the bottom-right corner, over whatever is there; leave it empty for no badge.

Where viewers meet it

YouTube theme

Simulated layout, not affiliated with YouTube

Drop a thumbnail above to see it in each place.

Can it be read, and will it be clicked?

The checker scores how readable the thumbnail is when small, with the other factors of the score, and says what to change. This button takes your thumbnail and title there; the analysis starts when you press Analyze and uses one free analysis (3 a day without an account).

Drop a thumbnail first.

What the checker says about readability

Example result

Thumbnail Readability28/100Needs Work

  1. 01Cut the overlay from eleven words to three or four: shrunk small, the sentence is a grey smudge.
  2. 02Put near-white, heavy text on a dark base instead of mid-grey on a busy screenshot.
  3. 03Drop the corner badge: two elements compete for a glance that lasts under a second.

An invented thumbnail: the cluttered one of the first worked example. See it fixed

How these sizes were measured

On youtube.com on October 19, 2026, without an account, in Chrome on a 1440-pixel screen and a 390-pixel phone, one visit a page: 500 × 281 in search results, 347 × 195 in a channel's grid, 248 × 139 among the suggested videos beside the player (218 to 359 wide as the screen changes), and the full width of a phone's search results. The title's type and cut, the corners and the length badge were measured the same way. YouTube publishes none of these sizes and changes its layout; its apps, the signed-in home page and the space between cards were not measured. The layout is drawn from these measurements: it is not YouTube's page, and the videos around yours are grey blocks. The 168 × 94 test is smaller than all of them.

Score your thumbnail in the checker