The Frustration of Changing Thumbnails on YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts have quickly become a powerful way for brands and creators to reach audiences. The format is short, vertical, and highly engaging. Perfect for discovery. While Shorts can drive incredible reach, there’s one consistent pain point we've run into and have yet to solve: changing the thumbnail.

On Regular YouTube Videos vs. Shorts

On regular YouTube videos, it’s simple. Upload your video, and you can either pick a frame or upload a custom thumbnail. Now there's even an "AI Generate" option. This allows you to control the first impression viewers see in search results or on your channel. With Shorts, however, it’s a very different story.

What Happens in YouTube Studio

When you upload a Short in YouTube Studio on desktop, you’ll often see the message:

“You can change the thumbnail on the YouTube mobile app.”

That sounds promising—until you open the mobile app and discover that the option isn’t there. Then you go to YouTube Studio on your mobile device, only to discover that the option is also not there. Then you go to your favorite LLM and ask, "How do you change the thumbnail on a YouTube Short?", and they tell you it should be in YouTube Studio, but you know for a fact that it is not. For many users, especially business accounts, the app simply doesn’t provide any way to pick a frame or upload a custom image.

Why Thumbnails Matter for Shorts

Thumbnails aren’t just a cosmetic choice. They play a major role in:

• Attracting clicks from search results
• Branding your content consistently
• Communicating the topic of your video quickly

When you lose control over thumbnails, you lose one of the most basic tools for optimizing your content.

Workarounds Creators Try

Some creators attempt to bake a thumbnail into the first seconds of their video—essentially adding a still frame that looks like a thumbnail. While this sometimes works, it’s highly unreliable. YouTube still auto-selects which frame it displays, and there’s no guarantee your designed image will appear.

Where Things Stand

YouTube has started rolling out the ability to upload custom thumbnails for Shorts, but it isn’t available to all accounts yet. Some channels can upload thumbnails, some can only pick from video frames, and others, like the accounts we currently manage, can’t do either.

For now, there’s no good option to reliably set a thumbnail for Shorts. Until YouTube makes this feature available across all accounts, accounts will have to live with the limitations. Experiencing something different? Tell us about it in our LinkedIn Page.