Practical writing on YouTube thumbnails. Sizes, downloads, design — anything where the answer changes depending on what device you're on, what year it is, or what YouTube updated last month.
Every size YouTube actually uses, the 2 MB file-size limit (and the 50 MB rollout people keep mentioning), aspect ratios that quietly trip people up, and the 246×138 display size that should actually drive your design.
Read the guide →Why the long-press inside the YouTube app doesn't work, and the three-tap method in Safari that does. Includes the iOS 17 trick for lifting the image into another app.
Read the guide →A method that works in all three browsers, plus what to do when your phone is on a restricted network and the download silently fails.
Read the guide →