{"id":6773,"date":"2018-11-02T03:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T07:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/local.brightwhiz\/?p=6773"},"modified":"2021-12-08T11:19:58","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T16:19:58","slug":"youtube-video-thumbnail-from-api","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/local.brightwhiz\/youtube-video-thumbnail-from-api\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the YouTube Video Thumbnail From the API"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The good news is that you do not need to rip the hair off your head to craft a YouTube video thumbnail. This is technology, and with it always comes an easy way to do things you want in a more timely and efficient manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge here with most new YouTubers is that after creating their first video<\/a>, they have to jump into a graphics editor to make a thumbnail to go along with the video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some circumstances, this may be ideal as you may want to have a specific theme of visual on your thumbnail when linking to a YouTube video. If that is not you, then there is a quick and easy solution to the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YouTube<\/a> provides an API that allows you to access the thumbnails that are automatically generated or uploaded when the video was published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thumbnails come in varied qualities, namely high quality, medium quality, standard definition, and max quality. These are in addition to the four images that are generated by default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four thumbnails can be accessed as follows, with the first being a full-size image while the other three are thumbnails:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/0.jpg<br>https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/1.jpg<br>https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/2.jpg<br>https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/3.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also access the default image using this format URL.
https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/default.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the high-quality version of the thumbnail use an URL with the following format:
https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/hqdefault.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how to use the medium quality version of the thumbnail:
https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/mqdefault.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the standard definition version of the thumbnail, you can use the following format for your URL:
https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/sddefault.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the maximum resolution version of the thumbnail uses an URL similar to this:
https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/<youtube-video-id>\/maxresdefault.jpg<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There you have it. You now have full access to the range of thumbnails available from the public YouTube video thumbnail API.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good news is that you do not need to rip the hair off your head to craft a YouTube video thumbnail. This is technology, and with it always comes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,23,16],"tags":[101,142,318,372,424,541,615,635,637,658],"yoast_head":"\nHow do I get a YouTube Video Thumbnail From the API?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is how you can get a YouTube video thumbnail of any video from the YouTube API including the high quality, fullsize thumbnails\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/local.brightwhiz\/youtube-video-thumbnail-from-api\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How do I get a YouTube Video Thumbnail From the API?\" \/>\n<meta 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