How to use Thumbnail maker
- Pick a size: YouTube 1280×720, OG or blog card 1200×630, or Instagram 1080×1080.
- Choose a gradient or colour background, or drop an image and set it to cover or contain.
- Type a headline and a subheading, then pick the font, colours, alignment and a shadow or outline.
- Optionally add a logo or photo in a corner, then export a JPG or PNG at the exact size.
Three sizes, exact to the pixel
YouTube thumbnails are 1280×720, Open Graph and blog cards 1200×630, and Instagram square posts 1080×1080. Pick one and the canvas is exactly that size, so the platform shows your image without cropping or blurring it. You can switch sizes at any time: the headline is laid out again for each shape rather than stretched.
After a YouTube export, the tool checks the file against YouTube's 2 MB thumbnail limit, counted strictly as two million bytes, and tells you whether it passes. A JPG at the default quality of 90 is almost always well under; if a detailed PNG is too big, switch to JPG or lower the quality slider.
Backgrounds and layers
Start from one of six gradients or any solid colour, or drop in your own image. Cover fills the whole canvas and crops the edges that don't fit; Contain shows the whole image with bars in your chosen colour. A darken slider lays a black wash over a photo so white text stays readable. You can also add a logo or photo in any corner, sized as a share of the width, and transparent PNG logos keep their transparency.
Headline and subheading
The headline shrinks to fit: it starts at the size you set and steps down until every line fits the width and the whole block fits the height, wrapping long titles onto several lines. Left alignment keeps the text to the left 62% of the width, leaving room for a face or a product on the right; centred text uses the full width. The subheading sits under the headline at about 40% of its size, and the pair can go at the top, middle or bottom.
Choose Anton, Bebas Neue, Archivo Black or Plus Jakarta Sans for the headline. All four are under the SIL Open Font License, so your thumbnails are free to use commercially. The font files are hosted on WeaveAI's own site and load when the tool first draws with them. A soft shadow or a black outline keeps the text legible on busy backgrounds.
Private and free
Everything is drawn on a canvas in your browser: your images are never uploaded, and there's no watermark, account or export limit.
Questions
- Will the thumbnail be accepted by YouTube?
- It is exactly 1280×720, the size YouTube recommends, and after export the tool checks the file is under YouTube's 2 MB limit. A JPG almost always is; if a PNG is too big, switch to JPG or lower the quality.
- Are my images uploaded?
- No. The background image and logo are drawn on a canvas in your browser, and the file is made there too. The fonts load once from WeaveAI's own site; nothing is sent anywhere.
- Which fonts can I use?
- Anton, Bebas Neue, Archivo Black and Plus Jakarta Sans, all under the SIL Open Font License, so the thumbnails are yours to use commercially. They are hosted on this site, not loaded from Google Fonts.