After posting content, producers may customize the Shorts thumbnails on mobile devices with text and effects thanks to new tools that YouTube has released for iOS and Android smartphones.
With the update, you can add text, filters, and emojis to a Shorts thumbnail frame that appears when you post a video, making it a more visually appealing material presentation method.
New Thumbnail Editing Capabilities
Take these actions to get to the new thumbnail editing features:
In the upper left corner of the Short, tap the pencil symbol. Go through the video and pick your favorite clip. Tap the corresponding icons to add text, emojis, or filters. Press the checkmark located in the upper right corner to save the changes.
Where Shorts Thumbnails Will Display
These personalized thumbnails will be accessible in a few significant places but not in the main Shorts feed:
- Search results
- Hashtag pages
- Audio pivot pages
- Creator channels
- Home and subscription feeds
Comparing This Platform With Others
Here’s how the new thumbnail editing features on YouTube Shorts stack against TikTok and Instagram Reels.
YouTube Shorts:
- Now, thumbnails can have text, emoticons, and filters added.
- Makes it possible to choose and modify thumbnails after uploading
- The main Shorts feed does not display thumbnails; they are visible in search, hashtags, and channel pages.
Instagram Reels:
- Enables the selection of a unique thumbnail from the video
- Offers text overlay on thumbnails
- Profile grid, feed, and Reels tab visible thumbnails
TikTok:
- Creates thumbnails automatically
- Few choices for unique thumbnails (primarily for adverts)
- Gives greater attention to the video’s opening frame, or “cover.”
YouTube’s approach is a halfway ground: it enables customization but limits exposure to select site portions. TikTok depends more on auto-generated thumbnails, while YouTube’s change gets it closer to Instagram’s capability for short-form videos.
