Do thumbnails still matter for Shorts or not anymore?

[Catherine Clark]

I used to spend hours designing eye-catching thumbnails for my YouTube Shorts, but lately, it seems like they barely matter since most people see the auto-generated frame. Are you guys still customizing your thumbnails or just letting YouTube pick one? Curious what actually makes a difference in reach.

 

[Nut-Nights]

If you have extra time, do it. If you dont, you can use auto generated ones. Most of the shorts dont have custom ones. Yes for long videos, you do need a custom one.

 

[Ralphoton]

I think, for shorts thumbnails matter less now

Because YouTube pushes Shorts based on watch time and hook and One page like tags paly a important role here.

 

[graysonwatt]

Thumbnails don’t matter much for shorts since most views come from the feed. I still make them look decent for the channel page, but the auto one usually works fine.

 

[onlinemarketer12]

I used to spend hours designing eye-catching thumbnails for my YouTube Shorts, but lately, it seems like they barely matter since most people see the auto-generated frame. Are you guys still customizing your thumbnails or just letting YouTube pick one? Curious what actually makes a difference in reach.

Always spend time in creating good thumbnails. It affects CTR which determines further spread of the video,

 

[iamhacker]

For YouTube Shorts, thumbnails don’t really make a difference YouTube picks a frame automatically. Focus on grabbing attention in the first few seconds of the video. For long-form content, though, custom thumbnails still matter for clicks.

 

[Smart Solutions]

CTR matters less on Shorts shelf, but it can make a difference on YouTube search.

 

[Dunyahayine]

I stopped stressing over thumbnails for Shorts. It feels like the video content itself is what really hooks people these days, not the cover image.

 

[savitaprasad]

I used to spend hours designing eye-catching thumbnails for my YouTube Shorts, but lately, it seems like they barely matter since most people see the auto-generated frame. Are you guys still customizing your thumbnails or just letting YouTube pick one? Curious what actually makes a difference in reach.

I do not feel thumbnails are very important for shorts.

 

[learnandearnwithseo]

They do not have much impact.