Privacy

The short version

TryThumb has no backend server, no accounts, and no analytics or tracking scripts in this version. It is a static set of pages plus client-side JavaScript that runs entirely on your device.

What happens to a pasted YouTube URL

When you paste a YouTube link or video ID, your browser fetches the public thumbnail image directly from YouTube's own image servers (i.ytimg.com) — the same thing that happens whenever that thumbnail is displayed anywhere else on the web, including on youtube.com itself. That request goes straight from your browser to Google's servers; TryThumb never sees the image or the request. Being honest about the tradeoff: this does mean Google's CDN receives a request from your browser (with the standard headers any such request carries, like your IP address), the same as loading any embedded YouTube thumbnail on any site would. If you'd rather nothing be requested from Google at all, use the upload option instead.

What happens to an uploaded image

Files you upload are read locally in your browser using the FileReader API and turned into an in-memory data URL. They are never transmitted anywhere — not to us (we have no server to send them to) and not to any third party.

What's stored, and where

Titles, channel names, and the other text fields you type are saved only in your browser's own localStorage for this site, so they're still there next time you visit from the same device and browser. Nothing is sent to a server. You can clear this at any time with the "Clear saved inputs" button on the tool, or by clearing this site's data in your browser settings. Uploaded images are not persisted between visits.

Cookies, accounts, analytics

None, as of this version. No account system exists. No cookies are set by TryThumb's own code, and no analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking scripts are included on any page. Our hosting provider may keep standard web-server access logs (request timestamps, IP addresses, requested paths) the way essentially any website's infrastructure does — that's outside TryThumb's own code and not something we can opt out of on your behalf, but it's not analytics or tracking we add, use, or see for marketing purposes.

Third parties

The only third party involved at all is YouTube/Google, and only when you use the paste-a-URL option, for the reason described above. See Google's privacy policy for how they handle that request. TryThumb does not embed any YouTube player, script, or widget — only a plain <img> pointed at a public thumbnail file.

If this changes

If a future version adds accounts, payment, or analytics, this page will be rewritten to describe exactly what changed and this paragraph will say so with a date. As of this version, it hasn't.

Last updated: 2026-08-06.