Build a YouTube Thumbnail Downloader in Python

Level: Beginner

Your task for today is to create a YouTube thumbnail downloader script that extracts and downloads thumbnail images from YouTube video URLs. This project introduces you to web requests, URL manipulation, and image downloading.

Project Task

Create a thumbnail downloader that:

• Takes a YouTube video URL as input (hardcoded)

• Extracts the video ID from the URL

• Constructs the thumbnail image URL

• Downloads the thumbnail using the requests library

• Saves the image to disk with a meaningful filename

• Works with different YouTube URL formats (youtube.com, youtu.be)

Bonus (optional):

• Download multiple quality versions (maxres, high, medium, default)

• Handle multiple video URLs from a list

• Display image dimensions after download

• Add error handling for invalid URLs

This project gives you hands-on practice with HTTP requests, URL parsing, image downloading, and file operations — useful skills for web automation.

Expected Output

Here is an example to get the thumbnail of this nice little video from Rick Astley:

YouTube Thumbnail Downloader
============================

Video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ

Downloading thumbnail...
Thumbnail saved as: dQw4w9WgXcQ_thumbnail.jpg
File size: 48 KB

Download complete!

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