Some content producers are receiving an unusual alert informing them that they are currently unable to update the thumbnails for their YouTube Shorts.
YouTube Shorts are a similar feature to TikTok and are widely popular among influencers. They’re short-form videos that can get a good audience reach.
Reports of ‘can’t add thumbnails for YouTube Shorts’ issue
Users can generally provide a unique thumbnail for YouTube Shorts or select one of the three suggested thumbnails. However, on the PC version of the YouTube Channel dashboard, this option appears to be disabled.
Instead, a notification saying ‘For now, you can’t change the thumbnail on your Short’ is displayed to content creators. This disclaimer is displayed on both newly uploaded and older Shorts.
"For now, you can’t change the thumbnail on your Short"
What gives @TeamYouTube? Been like this for a few days. I like making my Shorts look pretty 😪 pic.twitter.com/LILEEpJdwL
— Colin McNeil (@McNeilColin) December 19, 2022
Because of this issue, visitors can only view the default thumbnail, which forces the creator to rely on YouTube to choose the suitable one by itself.
“Hey @YouTube and @TeamYouTube I am currently seeing a message saying “For now, you can’t change the thumbnail on your Short”. Any Advice on how I can resolve this?” a user posted.
“Youtube won’t let me change thumbnails on shorts?!? … “For now, you can’t change the thumbnail on your Short”. You should allow more choice of thumbnails, but you are reducing this possibility #youtube #youtubeproblems #youtubedown #youtubeproblem,” another user reported.
Issue acknowledged
The developers made it clear that it is currently not possible to change the thumbnail once your Short has been posted in the release notes. At the time, this feature is only accessible on Android.
The YouTube team posted: “We removed the option to select a custom thumbnail on Studio desktop bc they didn’t work on the Shorts shelf/channel pages, so it was confusing. But if you upload Shorts on Android you can select a thumbnail that will show everywhere that ppl watch Shorts.”
Users should not be discouraged because they plan to reinstate this feature in the future.
Therefore, until the option is enabled again, content creators will continue to receive this message and will need to use their Android smartphones to change thumbnails.
