YouTube sizes

YouTube isn’t just a video-sharing platform; it’s also the second largest search engine in the world. Over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched every day worldwide. From original short films and music videos to vlogs and cat videos, you can use YouTube to promote your unique content and brand. But apart from great videos, it’s important to have high-quality video thumbnails, channel banners, and profile pictures for your channel.

Video thumbnail

The recommended YouTube thumbnail size is 1280 x 720 pixels and up to 2MB. For best results, upload a video thumbnail with a 16:9 aspect ratio. JPG, GIF, and PNG image files are supported. The minimum size dimensions for YouTube thumbnail images is 640 pixels wide.

Well-designed video thumbnails give viewers a quick preview of your video. They're a great way to attract viewers as they're browsing YouTube. After you've uploaded your video, you can choose from 3 automatically generated thumbnails or upload your own custom thumbnail. When you create a custom video thumbnail, it should be as large as possible because it’s used as the preview image for embedded YouTube links.

Channel banner

Your YouTube channel banner, also known as channel art or header, is similar to a cover photo that represents your brand and content. The ideal YouTube banner size is 2560 x 1440 pixels, but you can use minimum banner dimensions of 2048 x 1152 pixels. For best results, create a channel banner image with a 16:9 aspect ratio. JPG, PNG, GIF, and BMP image files up to 6MB are supported.

Because users watch YouTube videos from a variety of devices, including computers, mobile gadgets, and TV, your banner image will look different depending on the device. But wherever it’s viewed, the best size for your channel art or banner is still 2560 x 1440 pixels.

Video

You can upload a range of YouTube video sizes to your channel, from 240p (426 x 240 pixels) to 2160p (3840 x 2160 pixels). However, the maximum file size is 256GB or 12 hours (whichever is less). In addition, YouTube videos ideally have an aspect ratio of 16:9.

Profile picture

Your YouTube profile picture, also known as channel icon, is a circular image that acts as your profile photo and channel logo on YouTube. The ideal YouTube profile picture size is 800 x 800 pixels (a 1:1 aspect ratio). JPG, PNG, GIF, and BMP files are supported, and your profile picture shouldn’t exceed 2MB. You can easily create a correctly sized profile picture with our templates.

It’s important that you set either your own picture or logo as your icon, so followers can easily recognize your channel and work. Take note that the default icon will be the image associated with your Google Account. You can change the image in your Google Account settings.