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Genre: Education
License: Standard YouTube license
Family friendly? Yes
Shared July 24, 2026
Creators can add a fully custom thumbnail to a new Short as part of the upload flow on desktop, or add a custom thumbnail to an existing Short via the Details tab in Studio
if you don’t want to make a fully custom thumb, you can instead pick one of three suggested video frames as the thumbnail on desktop, or pick any frame on Mobile
A few things to keep in mind: While Shorts are 9x16, the sweet spot for Shorts thumbnails across devices and presentations closer to 5x4, so keep anything important away from the edges
There’s no A/B testing for Shorts thumbnails, and it’s desktop only for now
Fully custom thumbnails are rolling out first to channels in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and YouTube will be expanding access over time, so stay tuned for future updates
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