Shortcuts
Power-user shortcuts.
ExtractThumb is built to be quick, but here are the faster paths once you know the tool.
On the page
Fetch the thumbnail after pasting a linkEnter
Switch between Max, SD, HQ and MQ sizesTap a quality card
Save the selected sizeDownload button
Grab the raw image link to use elsewhereCopy image URL
Skip the tool entirely
Because YouTube stores thumbnails at fixed addresses, you can jump straight to an image if you already have the video ID. Replace VIDEO_ID with the 11 characters after v= or youtu.be/:
Max resolution (1280×720, not on every video)/vi/VIDEO_ID/maxresdefault.jpg
Standard (640×480)/vi/VIDEO_ID/sddefault.jpg
High (480×360, always exists)/vi/VIDEO_ID/hqdefault.jpg
Medium (320×180, always exists)/vi/VIDEO_ID/mqdefault.jpg
The full host is https://i.ytimg.com — for example https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg.
Tip: if
maxresdefault.jpg loads as a small grey box, that video simply doesn't have a max-resolution thumbnail. Fall back to sddefault or hqdefault — which is exactly what ExtractThumb does for you automatically.