This shorts video currently ranks number one on Google search out of 113 million results, and shows a large thumbnail at the top of the search results.
It’s my top traffic source out of all the other traffic sources, but YouTube says “for now, you can’t change the thumbnail on YouTube short.” When viewed on YouTube, YouTube just selects a vertical frame taken from your shorts video.
What’s the workaround?
In the video below, I’m going to show you 2 ways to upload or change a custom thumbnail for YouTube shorts so you can get more views.
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Here’s how to upload or change a custom thumbnail for your shorts video
using the free Chrome extension VidIQ
Here’s my shorts video titled YouTube Shorts Tips, which currently has a vertical thumbnail, but I want to change that to a custom thumbnail.
- On the video details page, it says, “for now, you can’t change the thumbnail on your short”
- If you have the VidIQ Chrome extension installed, you’ll see beside the thumbnail, “create thumbnail.” So click on that.
- Click on “other image” T
- Here’s drop file here, or click to browse the files. So you’re going to “click to browse files“,
- Click on shorts tips,
- Click open,
- Now I’ve got my custom thumbnail called shorts tips.
- Click Next.
- You could create your own custom thumbnail just using this thumbnail editor, but I’ve already created my custom thumbnail, so I’m just going to click next.
- And I’ve got YouTube search, Facebook and Twitter.
- Select YouTube search.
- Save thumbnail.
- Now I’m going to refresh the page.
- Click Reload.
- And here’s my new custom thumbnail that I uploaded for my YouTube shorts.
Here’s how to upload or change a custom thumbnail for YouTube shorts
using the free Chrome extension TubeBuddy.
Here’s another Shorts video titled YouTube Tips that doesn’t have a custom thumbnail.
- If you have the TubeBuddy Chrome extension installed, you’ll see this
TubeBuddy icon under the Shorts thumbnail. - Click on the dropdown.
- It says TubeBuddy tools.
- Click on Thumbnail Generator.
- It says, what type of background would you like for the thumbnail?
- Select a still frame from the video, choose a solid color or image, or existing thumbnail.
- So I have an existing thumbnail so I’m going to click on that.
- I can choose from any of these suggestions from TubeBuddy,
or I can click to upload your own image. - So I’m going to click on that.
- Select shorts tips.
- Click open.
- Here it is.
- Click continue.
- The great benefit of using TubeBuddy’s thumbnail generator is that it shows your custom thumbnail here at the top, then all your competitors’ thumbnails below.
- Click Save and publish.
- Are you sure you want to publish this thumbnail?
- Click OK.
- It says, please reload this page to see your changes.
- Click reload.
- And now you can see I’ve got the custom thumbnail uploaded for my shorts video.
Keep in mind that when you upload a custom thumbnail for YouTube shorts, it only appears in Google search, whereas on YouTube, it selects a vertical frame from your shorts video.
As you can see, when you view shorts on the short shelf from your mobile phone, it shows a preview of the shorts video, so your custom thumbnail won’t appear there but it will show a vertical frame
It also automatically shifts to the next Shorts video for you to watch. This means that the first few seconds of your Shorts video really counts if you want to get a good preview on your Shorts video for people scrolling their mobile phones.
Recently, YouTube enabled Android users to choose a frame from their Shorts video to use as a custom thumbnail. Keep in mind, this is a vertical thumbnail that’s selected from one of the frames on the Shorts video, and it’ll be seen on YouTube as well as on mobile phones. It won’t be the same as the custom thumbnail that I created for you today.
Here’s what YouTube says about vertical videos.with 16:9 custom thumbnails.
“Vertical videos with 16:9 custom thumbnails will be replaced by an auto generated 4:5 thumbnail on the home, explore and subscription pages. Your custom thumbnail will still appear on the watch feed, watch history, and non-mobile platforms.”
If you want to grow your channel fast using YouTube shorts, watch this video for 10 Killer Ways to grow YouTube channel using YouTube shorts.
Click here to Get My New Video Course
“SECRETS TO AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT” You’ll discover how to hook your viewers’ attention, get them to spend more time on each video, and motivate them to watch more videos from your channel, so YouTube will recommend your content to other channels.
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