Choose Your Own Thumbnail Image

We're always happy when we can make improvements to the site based on our users' ideas and requests. So many of you asked for the ability to choose thumbnail images for the videos you upload to YouTube that, well, we just had to do it! On the My Videos page just select the video, click "Edit Video Info," then select one of three images available on the Video Still section at the top. After you update the video info, your selected thumbnail will appear on the site. (Please note: in some cases it may take up to six hours for the image to appear.)


The thumbnail option is offered as a way for you to represent the content of your video, and it should do just that. So, if you've added a risqué clip to your video of cute puppies, in hopes that the split-second bikini shot will end up as a thumbnail which might gain more view counts, we will have to flag your video as having adult content. Just a word to the wise.


The YouTube Team