How to get a YouTube thumbnail from a YouTube iframe?
YouTube thumbnails
YouTube thumbnails can be found in this standard path:
http://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/[thumbnail-number].jpg
[video-id]
is the YouTube video ID, e.g.1sIWez9HAbA
.[thumbnail-number]
is the number of the thumbnail of the 4 eachvideo usually has, e.g.0
.
Getting the thumbnail from an iframe
So, based on the iframe
's src
attribute you may construct the URL of the thumbnail directly.
For example, using jQuery:
var iframe = $('iframe:first');var iframe_src = iframe.attr('src');var youtube_video_id = iframe_src.match(/youtube\.com.*(\?v=|\/embed\/)(.{11})/).pop();if (youtube_video_id.length == 11) { var video_thumbnail = $('<img src="//img.youtube.com/vi/'+youtube_video_id+'/0.jpg">'); $(body).append(video_thumbnail);}
Note this example checks the URL of the iframe
for a valid YouTube video ID and assumes it to be 11 characters long, which is the de facto standard.
See jsFiddle Demo
Get Youtube thumbnail images using below urls
Low quality
https://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/sddefault.jpg
medium quality
https://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/mqdefault.jpg
High quality
http://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/hqdefault.jpg
maximum resolution
http://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/maxresdefault.jpg
example: https://img.youtube.com/vi/OYr-KPboPDw/hqdefault.jpg
This function work with all types of youtube links & domains such as
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKW2Hq2fks
https://www.youtube.com/embed/WZKW2Hq2fks
https://youtu.be/WZKW2Hq2fks?t=66
And you can get the quality you want.
To use it:
// quality options: low, medium, high, max | default is max.var thumbnail = get_youtube_thumbnail('https://youtu.be/WZKW2Hq2fks', 'max');console.log(thumbnail);
function get_youtube_thumbnail(url, quality){ if(url){ var video_id, thumbnail, result; if(result = url.match(/youtube\.com.*(\?v=|\/embed\/)(.{11})/)) { video_id = result.pop(); } else if(result = url.match(/youtu.be\/(.{11})/)) { video_id = result.pop(); } if(video_id){ if(typeof quality == "undefined"){ quality = 'high'; } var quality_key = 'maxresdefault'; // Max quality if(quality == 'low'){ quality_key = 'sddefault'; }else if(quality == 'medium'){ quality_key = 'mqdefault'; } else if (quality == 'high') { quality_key = 'hqdefault'; } var thumbnail = "http://img.youtube.com/vi/"+video_id+"/"+quality_key+".jpg"; return thumbnail; } } return false;}