YouTube now supports custom thumbnails for playlists, but there’s a catch

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

Although YouTube lets you use just about any image as a thumbnail for your videos, it doesn’t offer a similar option for playlists. Video playlists on the platform automatically pick the thumbnail from the first video in the lineup, and you can only change it by moving a different video to the top of the playlists. That’s set to change with the latest YouTube app update.

YouTube has been working on giving users the option to add custom thumbnails to playlists for a while now. We first spotted the in-development feature in a teardown of the YouTube app this June, and it’s rolling out to users with version 19.37.35. However, YouTube’s implementation has some unusual limitations.

For starters, the ability to add custom thumbnails to playlists is only available to those who have a verified account. This means that a vast majority of users won’t get the feature from the get-go, and they’ll have to verify their phone number on the platform to get access.

If you choose to verify your phone number, you should see a new button with a pencil icon in the bottom right corner of playlist thumbnails. Tapping on it will open an edit menu, which brings us to the next limitation. As you can see in the attached screenshots, the edit menu only offers options to create a thumbnail with AI or remove the custom image.

The feature doesn’t let you upload a custom image, so you can’t actually pick a thumbnail image of your liking. You can only generate one based on a few preset themes, much like the AI-enabled album art generation feature for playlists in YouTube Music.

Upon selecting a theme, the feature will automatically generate sample images based on a preconfigured prompt. You will get the option to change parts of the prompt by tapping the underlined text, but the feature doesn’t let you enter a custom prompt. Alternatively, you can use the Randomize button to generate a new set of images.

Although this new feature is better than relying on playlists automatically picking thumbnails from the first video, we’re sure many users would prefer having the option to upload custom images instead. We hope YouTube adds this functionality in a future update.

Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at [email protected]. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.