YouTube thumbnail URL: the image link for every size

Developers, bloggers and editors often need the direct image link of a YouTube thumbnail. YouTube never shows it, but the address is the same for every video.

The pattern

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/FILE.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/VIDEO_ID/FILE.webp

Replace VIDEO_ID with the video’s 11-character ID and FILE with one of the names below.

Every thumbnail file name

File	Size	Ratio	Exists for
maxresdefault	1280 × 720	16:9	HD uploads only
sddefault	640 × 480	4:3	Most videos
hqdefault	480 × 360	4:3	Every video
mqdefault	320 × 180	16:9	Every video
default	120 × 90	4:3	Every video
0	480 × 360	4:3	Every video (same as hqdefault)
1, 2, 3	120 × 90	4:3	Every video: auto-picked frames from the video

The 4:3 files are padded with black bars when the video is widescreen. For a clean 16:9 image use maxresdefault or mqdefault.

Example

For the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ:

Want	URL
HD JPG	https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg
HD WebP	https://i.ytimg.com/vi_webp/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.webp
Always-available JPG	https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg
Small widescreen	https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/mqdefault.jpg

Skip the guesswork

Not every video has every file, and a missing size returns a grey placeholder rather than an error. The YouTube thumbnail downloader checks all of them for you, marks the ones that do not exist, and gives you a Copy link button for each real URL, plus Download JPG and WebP.

In code

A simple fallback chain in JavaScript:

const sizes = ['maxresdefault', 'sddefault', 'hqdefault'];
const url = (id, size) => `https://i.ytimg.com/vi/${id}/${size}.jpg`;
// A missing maxresdefault returns a 120 × 90 placeholder, so check naturalWidth after loading.

For production apps, the YouTube Data API returns the exact thumbnail URLs that exist for each video.

Related: YouTube thumbnail size in 2026 and how to download a YouTube thumbnail.