How To Create a YouTube Thumbnail in Canva

Navigate to Canva's website.

Once you’ve signed in or signed up, you’re taken to this main dashboard. Here you can search for themes, templates, or view your own designs.

In the search bar at the top of the screen, type in “YouTube Thumbnail”. Various options will appear, but they’re all the same sizing, so choose whichever you think fits best.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’re going to click on YouTube Thumbnail.

Before we start browsing, we need to filter out anything that isn’t free. In the left sidebar you’ll find all the filters. Scroll down and check off the box that says "Free".

Continue on to filter down to what you need or want. You can filter by themes, styles and color!

You can also start from a blank design if you can’t find anything that catches your eye.

Once ready, click to open the design template you want to use.

You now have a handful of ways to edit the template. Plus, if you don’t like how it looks closer up, you can change the template at any time from this design dashboard!

Be sure to change the design name to whatever you’d like!

Canva allows you to change all colors, fonts, and photos! So feel free to play around! As you can see in the photo above, there are many ways to design what you need. With integrations, emojis, and more you can create something eye-catching!

Here's our example of how we changed the colors and background image.

Once you’ve finished editing and designing, it's time to download your thumbnail! To do so, click the Download button at the top right of the screen.

In the dropdown, click the purple Download. Canva will spend a few seconds preparing the image for download.

Depending on your browser and its settings, you might be able to choose where to save the thumbnail, otherwise check your download folder.

There you go! You now have a design template of your own and a new YouTube thumbnail!