It can be notoriously frustrating if you’ve posted long form videos on YouTube and are looking to do the same with Shorts, but the one thing you can’t seem to figure out is how to get a custom thumbnail! Well, there currently is a way to do it and it only takes a couple of extra steps and a single extra frame in your video!
First, the method I’m going to cover here, I’m going to be doing from my iPhone. I don’t have an android to test this on, so I can’t 100% say that it will work the same from that device, but you can certainly try it and post a reply if it works or not!
First, you need to create your short. Whether that’s on a computer, phone, or whatever device, get your short ready to publish. Here’s the tricky part now. At the end of your video is where you’re going to put the thumbnail you want to publish. (You could do the same thing at the beginning of the video, but I personally find it easier and odds are less people might see if from the video if it’s at the end)
Add a single frame to your video and put your custom image there. Now render it and make sure it’s ready for publication and upload it to your phone! You MUST Publish it to YouTube from your phone as that’s the only place you can do this (pick a frame for your thumbnail). You cannot do this from the desktop/browser app!
(you can see the single frame at the end of the video with the custom thumbnail displayed above)
I happen to save all of my content to my DropBox account, then I can browse the content and save the new video to my phone.
Got the video saved to your “Photo’s” app? You can see it under your videos? Good, next step!
Open the iPhone YouTube app. Click on the “+” in the bottom center of the app.
Select the video you want to upload and click ‘Done’.
Next, press the ‘Check mark’ (bottom right hand corner) and then ‘Next’ (top right hand corner).
DON’T PRESS ON THE ‘UPLOAD SHORT’ UNTIL YOU SET YOUR THUMBNAIL!
To do this, you’ll see an image of your short you just uploaded in the upper left hand side of the screen. In that image, you should see a small pencil in the upper left hand corner of that image. Touch the pencil.
Done right, it should now go to a slider where you can slide back and forth on the video you uploaded so you can select the single “frame” in your video you want to be your thumbnail.
Simply slide all the way over to the last frame where you put your custom thumbnail and then touch ‘Done’
When done, now click on the ‘Upload Short’ button.
Done properly, it should now upload your short to YouTube with your custom thumbnail set!
This is the most valuable YouTube shorts tip I have seen so far. Worked like a charm. Wonderfully clear instructions with screenshots.
Thanks for the comment, I’m happy to hear it helped!