Blog · 20 October 2026

Your cover on YouTube: Art Tracks, static videos and thumbnails

Your cover reaches YouTube in up to three ways. Your distributor's delivery creates an Art Track, an automatic video of your song over its square cover. You can upload your own static video, the song over a 1920 by 1080 picture. And every video you upload gets a thumbnail, which you can replace with your own, best at 16:9 for a wide video. Each has different specs. Checked against YouTube's help pages on 20 October 2026.

Art Tracks: the video you did not make

YouTube's Art Track page describes it as an automatically generated YouTube version of a track on an album, made of the sound recording and the album art. Labels and distributors deliver it. If your distributor delivers your release to YouTube, your songs most likely appear this way, often on an auto-generated channel named after you with "Topic" at the end, which YouTube's artist channels page says it makes itself and recommends replacing with an Official Artist Channel.

What that means for the cover:

• The square release cover is the picture. Whatever you sent your distributor is what YouTube shows, with the player around it.
• You do not edit it on YouTube. The page says the feature is only available to label and distributor partners, so to change the picture, change the artwork through your distributor, under its rules.
• The file to send is the store file. YouTube's file guidance for music partners asks for square PNG or JPEG art, up to 4098 by 4098, with a recommended minimum of 1400 by 1400. Your 3000 by 3000 release cover fits.

Static music videos

A static video, sometimes called a visualizer or an audio video, is the song over one still picture, uploaded to your own channel. It is the simplest way to put a release on YouTube under your own name, with your title, your description and your links.

YouTube's recommended upload settings:

• Container: MP4.
• Video: H.264, progressive. For 1080p, about 8 Mbps at 24, 25 or 30 frames a second.
• Audio: AAC-LC at 48 kHz, stereo.
• Shape: 16:9 is standard on computers. Vertical and square videos also play, and the player adapts.

So the frame is 1920 by 1080, which YouTube's resolution page lists as 1080p at 16:9, and that is where the cover needs work. A square cover in a wide frame leaves two bars on the sides. You have three honest options:

1. A wider scene. Make or choose a version of the picture that is naturally wide: the whole room, the whole street. This looks best.
2. The square on a field of its own colour. Place the cover in the centre and fill the sides with a deep, blurred or flat version of its main colour. Simple and clean.
3. The square, small, on black. Fine for a lyric video where the text fills the rest.

Avoid stretching the square to 16:9. Faces and circles warp, and viewers notice.

Making it for free. Any video editor can do this: put the picture on a 1920 by 1080 timeline, drop in your mastered audio, set the picture's length to the song's length, and export with the settings above. Add slow movement if you like, a gentle zoom of a few percent across the whole song, so it does not look frozen. Upload it, then play it on a phone and a TV before you share the link.

Thumbnails

From YouTube's thumbnail page:

• Video thumbnails: 3840 by 2160 recommended, at least 640 wide, 16:9, JPG or PNG. Up to 2MB when uploading on a phone, 50MB on a computer.
• Shorts thumbnails: 2160 by 3840 recommended, 9:16, uploaded only in YouTube Studio on a computer.
• Eligibility: your account must be verified to upload your own thumbnails.
• Rules: thumbnails follow the Community Guidelines. Nudity or sexually provocative content, hate speech, violence and harmful or dangerous content can get a thumbnail rejected and earn a strike, and repeat offences can cost you custom thumbnails for 30 days.

A thumbnail is not a cover. It sits in a column of other thumbnails with a title next to it, so it can carry a little more: the song title in large type, or a face looking out. But it should still be clearly from the same release. The simplest thumbnail for a static video is the video's own frame with the title added.

A small set for every release

1. 3000 by 3000 square for your distributor, which also becomes the Art Track picture.
2. 1920 by 1080 frame for your static video, wide scene or cover on its own colour.
3. A 16:9 thumbnail, the video frame with the title, for your own upload.
4. A 1080 by 1920 vertical as the frame of a vertical static video for Shorts and as a Spotify Canvas.

When you keep a cover in Soundae, Download all sizes includes the 3000 by 3000 release file, a 1920 by 1080 landscape frame with the whole cover placed in the middle on a field matched to its edges, and a 1080 by 1920 vertical, so steps one, two and four start from files you already have.