For instance I have a blog post that has the following iframe
.
This function work with all types of youtube links & domains such as
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKW2Hq2fks
https://youtu.be/WZKW2Hq2fks
https://www.youtube.com/embed/WZKW2Hq2fks
https://youtu.be/WZKW2Hq2fks?t=66
And you can get the quality you want.
To use it:
// quality options: low, medium, high, max | default is max.
var thumbnail = get_youtube_thumbnail('https://youtu.be/WZKW2Hq2fks', 'max');
console.log(thumbnail);
function get_youtube_thumbnail(url, quality){
if(url){
var video_id, thumbnail, result;
if(result = url.match(/youtube\.com.*(\?v=|\/embed\/)(.{11})/))
{
video_id = result.pop();
}
else if(result = url.match(/youtu.be\/(.{11})/))
{
video_id = result.pop();
}
if(video_id){
if(typeof quality == "undefined"){
quality = 'high';
}
var quality_key = 'maxresdefault'; // Max quality
if(quality == 'low'){
quality_key = 'sddefault';
}else if(quality == 'medium'){
quality_key = 'mqdefault';
} else if (quality == 'high') {
quality_key = 'hqdefault';
}
var thumbnail = "http://img.youtube.com/vi/"+video_id+"/"+quality_key+".jpg";
return thumbnail;
}
}
return false;
}
YouTube thumbnails
YouTube thumbnails can be found in this standard path:
http://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/[thumbnail-number].jpg
[video-id]
is the YouTube video ID, e.g. 1sIWez9HAbA
.[thumbnail-number]
is the number of the thumbnail of the 4 each
video usually has, e.g. 0
.Getting the thumbnail from an iframe
So, based on the iframe
's src
attribute you may construct the URL of the thumbnail directly.
For example, using jQuery:
var iframe = $('iframe:first');
var iframe_src = iframe.attr('src');
var youtube_video_id = iframe_src.match(/youtube\.com.*(\?v=|\/embed\/)(.{11})/).pop();
if (youtube_video_id.length == 11) {
var video_thumbnail = $('<img src="//img.youtube.com/vi/'+youtube_video_id+'/0.jpg">');
$(body).append(video_thumbnail);
}
Note this example checks the URL of the iframe
for a valid YouTube video ID and assumes it to be 11 characters long, which is the de facto standard.
Get Youtube thumbnail images using below urls
Low quality
https://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/sddefault.jpg
medium quality
https://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/mqdefault.jpg
High quality
http://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/hqdefault.jpg
maximum resolution
http://img.youtube.com/vi/[video-id]/maxresdefault.jpg
example: https://img.youtube.com/vi/OYr-KPboPDw/hqdefault.jpg