How to add custom thumbnail on your YouTube videos verifying your channel

Video Thumbnails are the introduction of the video those let them viewers know what about the video is. Thumbnails are just quick snapshot of a video used to show information or attract the viewers attention. When you upload a new video YouTube automatically generates three thumbnails, simply choose one of them and click Save changes.

Add or change thumbnail of uploaded video

If you have already uploaded videos on YouTube and want to add/change the thumbnail of a particular video, follow my steps -
* Sign in to YouTube
* Go to Creator Studio
* Click Video manager
* Click on the video
* Click Edit ✏
* Choose a thumbnail
* Click Save changes

Note : You can use Creator Studio app to add or change video thumbnails.

Add custom thumbnail on YouTube video

To add or change a custom thumbnail of YouTube videos your channel must be a verified channel. Now the question is how to verify a YouTube channel ?
* Sign in to YouTube
* Click Channel
* Click Verify
* Select your country
* Enter your mobile number
* Enter received 6-digit code

Congratulations ! Your YouTube channel is now verified and custom thumbnail option is enabled for you.

If your channel is verified you can simply change or add custom thumbnail using Creator Studio where you will find the custom thumbnail option enabled. If you click Custom Thumbnail it opens your Phone Gallery to choose a custom thumbnail. After selecting a thumbnail click Save changes.

Custom Thumbnail requirements

* YouTube video's custom thumbnail image should be as large as possible created by you, as the image will also be used as the preview image in the embedded player.

* Thumbnail resolution must be 1280x720 (with minimum width of 640 pixels) uploaded in any of these image formats .JPG, .GIF, .BMP, or .PNG.

* Image size should be less than 2 MB.

* Use 16:9 aspect ratio (recommended) as it's the most used in YouTube players and previews.

Thumbnail Policies by YouTube

Custom thumbnails must follow the Community Guidelines of YouTube. Thumbnails that suggest sexual orientation, violent, or graphic may cause your video to be age-restricted by YouTube. Age-restricted partner videos won't be showing Ads against them and nor will appear on browse pages.

The ability to upload custom thumbnails may be revoked for creators who consistently use thumbnails that don't follow our guidelines. If your thumbnail privileges have been revoked, we will not be able to restore this privilege.

Why custom thumbnails are disabled ?

YouTube reserves the right to disable custom thumbnails for certain search results when they're considered unfit for viewers according to YouTube team.

To determine whether a thumbnail may be unsuited, YouTube considers, among other signals, audience retention, likes and dislikes, and viewer feedback.

Let me in comments how much it helped you enabling custom thumbnail option in YouTube.

Thank You