YouTube thumbnails and video, PowerPoint/Google Slides, and most monitors and TVs all use the 16:9 widescreen ratio.

What if my photo is portrait?

You can still crop a 16:9 region out of it — you'll just keep a wide horizontal band of the original.

What pixel size will the 16:9 result be?

It depends on your original. A 4000 by 3000 photo gives a 4000 by 2250 crop; a 1920 by 1440 image gives 1920 by 1080. The width is kept and the height trimmed, so a larger source means a larger thumbnail.

Is 16:9 right for a YouTube thumbnail?

Yes. YouTube recommends 1280 by 720 at 16:9. Crop to the ratio here, then resize to 1280 wide if your image is much larger, and keep the file under YouTube's 2 MB limit for thumbnails.

Crop Image to 16:9

Crop a photo to a widescreen 16:9 ratio — perfect for thumbnails and slides.

Aspect ratio

Drop an image here or click to choose

processed on your device — never uploaded

A 16:9 crop is the shape of almost every screen you will put an image on: a YouTube thumbnail at 1280 by 720, a slide in PowerPoint or Google Slides, a website hero on a laptop. Phone photos come out at 4:3 or 3:2, so dropping one onto a widescreen layout leaves bars or lets the platform crop it unpredictably. This page cuts the image to 16:9 in one step.

The crop is taken from the centre: the tool keeps the widest 16:9 band it can from the middle of your photo, which for a landscape shot means trimming a strip off the top and bottom. For a product, a building or a group photo with the subject in the middle, that is exactly right. Someone standing at the left edge of a 4:3 frame will be partly cut, because the centred crop cannot be dragged. If that is your photo, make a rough crop in your gallery app first, then come back for the exact ratio.

Cropping removes pixels without resampling the rest, so what you keep is as sharp as the original. From a portrait photo you get a thin wide slice, which is fine for a banner and too small for a thumbnail; from a landscape photo you keep most of the frame. The cut is made on your device and nothing is uploaded.

More sizes & options

Frequently asked questions

Where is 16:9 used?: YouTube thumbnails and video, PowerPoint/Google Slides, and most monitors and TVs all use the 16:9 widescreen ratio.
What if my photo is portrait?: You can still crop a 16:9 region out of it — you'll just keep a wide horizontal band of the original.
What pixel size will the 16:9 result be?: It depends on your original. A 4000 by 3000 photo gives a 4000 by 2250 crop; a 1920 by 1440 image gives 1920 by 1080. The width is kept and the height trimmed, so a larger source means a larger thumbnail.
Is 16:9 right for a YouTube thumbnail?: Yes. YouTube recommends 1280 by 720 at 16:9. Crop to the ratio here, then resize to 1280 wide if your image is much larger, and keep the file under YouTube's 2 MB limit for thumbnails.

Related tools

🔒 Your files are processed on your device. This tool runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.