PyThumb

Simple command line utility and API for downloading YouTube thumbnails.

Supports JPEG and WebP formats in all sizes. Previews (animated thumbnails) are not supported due to the lack of direct URL or API access.

Requires Python 3.6+

Table of contents

• Installation
  • From source
• Usage
  • CLI
  • API
  • Thumbnail sizes
• License

Installation

Install via pip:

$ pip install pythumb

Or get binaries from the latest release.

From source

Use python instead of python3 on Windows

Download source code from the latest release, extract and cd into it.

(Optional) Create a virtual environment to manage packages easier.

Update pip and setuptools:

$ python3 -m pip install -U pip setuptools

Install this package:

$ python3 -m pip install .

Optionally you can build a standalone executable.

Prerequisites:

• Git Bash (Windows)

On Linux install python3-dev:

$ sudo apt install python3-dev

Install PyInstaller:

$ python3 -m pip install pyinstaller

Run the build script for your OS:

$ chmod +x ./scripts/build.sh
$ ./scripts/build.sh <win / linux>

You can find the executable in ./pyi-dist/.

Usage

CLI

$ pythumb [options] <input>

To save a thumbnail to the current directory, simply pass the video URL or 11-character ID (recommended quoted):

$ pythumb "https://youtu.be/aqz-KE-bpKQ"
# or
$ pythumb "aqz-KE-bpKQ"

Use --help for more details.

API

Example

from pythumb import Thumbnail
t = Thumbnail('https://youtu.be/aqz-KE-bpKQ')
t.fetch()
t.save('.')
# ./aqz-KE-bpKQ.jpg

Thumbnail sizes

Auto-generated previews (start, middle and end of the video)

License

MIT license. See LICENSE for more information.