Thumbnail generator for YouTube and Shorts
Choose a short video or a few screenshots and type your title. The generator picks the sharpest, best-lit frames that don't repeat each other, centres the face where it can find one and sets your title in a bold font and colour, in four looks. Each comes as a 16:9 YouTube thumbnail and a 9:16 cover for Shorts, Reels and TikTok, ready to download.
Free, no sign-in, nothing to install.
No video to hand?
Try it on a stock podcast clip to see the four looks.
- 4 looks per run: center stage, headline, side by side and sticker.
- Both sizes: 1280 × 720 for YouTube, 1080 × 1920 for Shorts, Reels and TikTok.
- Your colours: 6 accents or any colour, and 8 bold fonts.
How to use it
- 1Choose a short video, or up to 8 screenshots of the moments you like. Nothing is uploaded.
- 2Type the title for the thumbnail: two to five words read best at phone size.
- 3Pick a font and an accent colour; every variant redraws as you type.
- 4Download the 16:9 thumbnail for YouTube or the 9:16 cover for Shorts and Reels, and upload it with your video.
Skip the busywork with Reeltopus
In Reeltopus, every clip gets thumbnails from its own best moments: frames with the speaker in shot, taken between words and away from cuts, cropped around the face and lettered in your brand kit's font and colours.
The free plan includes 1 upload hour a month. Free exports carry a small watermark; paid plans have none.
Try Reeltopus freeQuestions
What size is a YouTube thumbnail?+
1280 × 720 pixels (16:9), under 2 MB, as YouTube's help asks. A Shorts, Reels or TikTok cover is 1080 × 1920 (9:16). The generator saves both as JPEG at those sizes and keeps every file under 2 MB.
How does it pick the frames?+
From a video it reads 16 frames spread across it, skipping the first and last moments, and scores each for sharpness (motion blur and soft focus score low), exposure, contrast and colour. It keeps the four best that don't look like the same shot. Where your browser can detect faces, frames with a big face rank higher and the crop centres on the face; otherwise it centres on the part of the frame with the most detail.
Is my video uploaded?+
No. The video or images are opened and drawn in your browser, and the thumbnails are made there too. Nothing is sent to Reeltopus or anyone else.
Does it use AI image generation?+
No. Every thumbnail is a real frame of your video with your title on it, so it never shows something that isn't in the video and there are no image-model rights to worry about.
Can I use my own font?+
The free tool offers eight bold display fonts. In Reeltopus, thumbnails use your brand kit's font (including one you upload) and colours, and come from the best moments of each clip.
Why do the Shorts covers keep the text near the middle?+
Instagram shows only the middle 3:4 of a 9:16 cover on your profile grid, and the app's buttons cover the edges. Every look keeps the title inside that middle band. Check your own designs with the thumbnail safe-area checker.
Let Reeltopus make the clips for you.
Start free with 1 upload hour a month in 1080p, no card needed.