Crop Image

What this tool does

Crop image files here without installing an editor or creating an account. Pick a shape, such as 16:9 for a YouTube thumbnail, 9:16 for a vertical frame, square or 4:5, and the largest box of that shape is placed on your picture straight away. Drag it to frame your subject, pull a corner to tighten it, or type the exact position and size in pixels. The download is cut from the full-resolution original, so the crop loses no detail unless you choose to scale it.

How to crop an image to 16:9

1. Add the image. Drop it onto the page, paste it, or choose it from your disk.
2. Keep 16:9 selected. It is the default, because it is the shape YouTube's Help Center suggests for a video thumbnail. While the ratio is locked the box can only ever be that shape.
3. Frame the shot. Drag the box over the part you want, or drag a corner to zoom in. The thirds lines help you place a face off-centre, leaving space for a title.
4. Choose a download size. Unscaled keeps the cropped pixels exactly; 1280 wide turns a 16:9 crop into a 1280×720 file. Then download as JPG, PNG or WebP.

Exact pixels, and no upload

Many of the croppers that rank for this job send your photo to a server, and some have no way to type a size, so hitting an exact crop means dragging by eye. Here the four pixel fields work both ways: drag and they update, type and the box moves. With a ratio locked, the height follows the width, so a 16:9 crop comes out as a true 16:9 wherever the pixels allow. If the crop is smaller than the size you ask for, the tool warns that it will be enlarged and look softer, rather than quietly upscaling it.

The image is read by your browser and cropped on a canvas on your device, so the original never leaves it.

If a thumbnail looks cut off after upload, why your YouTube thumbnail is cropped explains the usual causes, and how to take photos for YouTube thumbnails covers shooting with room to crop. To resize one image for several platforms at once, use the social media image resizer; to put a headline on the crop, use add text to thumbnail, or generate a thumbnail from scratch.

Last updated November 2, 2026.