YouTube Banner Downloader

The file that comes back here is the wide desktop rendition at about 2120 pixels across, the same crop YouTube's own channel page requests. If you are uploading art of your own instead, YouTube asks for a single image of at least 2048 x 1152 pixels, under 6 MB, as a JPG, PNG, BMP or non animated GIF. Smaller files are rejected at upload and much larger ones are downscaled anyway, so 2048 x 1152 stays the practical target.

There is only one banner file per channel, and YouTube crops it per device instead of storing separate versions. A television shows the whole frame, up to 2560 x 1440. Desktop shows a wide strip of roughly 2560 x 423, tablets about 1855 x 423, and phones only the central 1546 x 423. The block that survives every crop is the middle 1235 x 338, which YouTube calls the safe area, so logos and text belong inside it. What you download here is the whole file, not your own browser's crop, which is why it looks taller and roomier than the strip you are used to seeing.

Channel art is optional, and the API only reports a banner once the owner has uploaded one, so channels that never set it come back empty. A banner uploaded minutes ago can also take a while to appear through the API even though the channel page already shows it. One more case looks identical from here: a handle or name that resolved to a different channel than the one you meant, since names are matched through YouTube's search. Pasting the id that starts with UC removes that doubt.

A YouTube API key is a free identifier from the Google Cloud console that lets an app read YouTube data. You don't need one here. The video thumbnail page never uses a key at all, since those images come straight from YouTube's image host (i.ytimg.com), and the channel, banner, profile picture and playlist pages fall back to a shared backend key. Your own key gives you a separate daily quota (Google grants each project 10,000 units a day for free), which is what you want if a lookup starts failing with a quota error after many searches in a row.

Your key never touches our server. It's sent directly from your browser to Google. For best safety, restrict your key in the Google Cloud console: under 'Application restrictions' choose 'HTTP referrers' and allow only this site's domain (e.g. https://youtube-thumbnail-download.app/*), and under 'API restrictions' allow only the YouTube Data API v3. That way, even if someone copies your key from your browser, they can't use it elsewhere.

In the Google Cloud console, open 'APIs & Services' > 'Credentials', click your API key, then under 'Application restrictions' choose 'HTTP referrers' and add the URL of this site. Under 'API restrictions', select 'YouTube Data API v3'. Save. Restrictions take effect within a few minutes.

Channel art is copyrighted by the channel owner. Keeping a copy for private reference is one thing, publishing it is another. Commentary, criticism, news reporting, teaching and research are the uses that normally sit inside fair use, so a banner shown in a review of that channel or in an article about its rebrand is usually fine. Setting the same art as the header of your own channel, or selling anything that carries it, is not.