How do I resize an image to 1280×720?

Drop the image in above and choose the YouTube target. It scales the image to cover 1280×720 and crops the overflow from the centre, so proportions stay correct rather than being stretched.

How do I get my thumbnail under 2 MB?

Export as JPG rather than PNG and lower the quality until the file fits — quality 85 is usually indistinguishable from 100 at thumbnail sizes and is a fraction of the size. Or upload from desktop, where YouTube's limit is 50 MB rather than 2 MB.

Does resizing lose quality?

Scaling down does not visibly lose quality. Scaling up does — an image smaller than the target gets softer, and no tool can invent detail that was never captured. Start from the largest original you have.

Is JPG or PNG better for a thumbnail?

JPG for anything photographic, which is nearly every thumbnail. PNG is worth it only for flat graphics with hard edges and large areas of solid colour, or when you need transparency — and thumbnails are never transparent.

Free tool

Free Thumbnail Resizer & Compressor

Get the exact pixel size and a file small enough to upload, in one step.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

Drop an image, or click to choose

Any JPG, PNG or WebP. The bigger the original, the better.

How to use it

Drop in an image
Any JPG or PNG. It is processed in your browser and never uploaded.
Choose a target
Pick the platform. The tool resizes to that exact pixel size, cropping from the centre to fit the aspect ratio rather than squashing the image.
Compress and download
Adjust quality until the file is comfortably under the platform limit, then download the JPG.

Why your thumbnail gets rejected for size

YouTube's file size limit depends on where you upload from: 2 MB for a video thumbnail on mobile, 10 MB for a podcast thumbnail on mobile, and 50 MB for either on desktop. A large PNG straight out of a design tool routinely exceeds the mobile limit while sitting comfortably inside the desktop one.

Two fixes. Export as JPG rather than PNG — a photographic thumbnail gains nothing from PNG's lossless compression and often triples in size. Or upload from a desktop browser, where the limit is 25× higher.

Crop, do not squash

Resizing a 4:3 photo into a 16:9 thumbnail by stretching it is instantly recognisable and looks amateurish — faces go wide, circles go oval. This tool crops from the centre instead, keeping the proportions correct and discarding the edges.

If the important part of your image is not in the middle, crop it yourself first, then resize.

Frequently asked questions

How do I resize an image to 1280×720?: Drop the image in above and choose the YouTube target. It scales the image to cover 1280×720 and crops the overflow from the centre, so proportions stay correct rather than being stretched.
How do I get my thumbnail under 2 MB?: Export as JPG rather than PNG and lower the quality until the file fits — quality 85 is usually indistinguishable from 100 at thumbnail sizes and is a fraction of the size. Or upload from desktop, where YouTube's limit is 50 MB rather than 2 MB.
Does resizing lose quality?: Scaling down does not visibly lose quality. Scaling up does — an image smaller than the target gets softer, and no tool can invent detail that was never captured. Start from the largest original you have.
Is JPG or PNG better for a thumbnail?: JPG for anything photographic, which is nearly every thumbnail. PNG is worth it only for flat graphics with hard edges and large areas of solid colour, or when you need transparency — and thumbnails are never transparent.

Need the thumbnail, not just the tool?

Thumbn watches your video, finds the frame worth using, writes the concept and renders it at every platform size — then grades its own work and redoes it until it clears the bar.

Make my thumbnails All free tools