The video cover is the face of your work and directly drives click-through. But different platforms have different cover size rules: Bilibili, Douyin, WeChat Channels, and YouTube all differ. A cover cropped to the wrong size gets compressed or displayed incompletely. This article covers how to crop a video cover.
Video Cover Size Rules by Platform
Know the mainstream platforms' cover sizes before cropping:
- Bilibili: 16:9, recommended 1920×1080; the cover is shown compressed
- Douyin: vertical 9:16 (1080×1920), landscape 16:9
- WeChat Channels: 16:9 landscape, or 1:1 square
- YouTube: 16:9, recommended 1280×720+
Most platforms center on 16:9, with some supporting vertical or square. Confirm your target platform, then crop to the matching ratio.
How to Crop a Video Cover
With the PixelForge multi-size crop tool, cropping a video cover is simple:
- Upload the cover original (a video frame or a designed image)
- Select the target ratio (e.g., 16:9) or enter specific pixels
- Adjust the kept area, ensuring the subject and title text aren't cut
- Export
16:9 is the common ratio for most video platforms. If you only make landscape videos, cropping to 16:9 rarely goes wrong.
What to Watch When Cropping
A few common pitfalls in video cover cropping — avoid them to save rework:
- Avoid platform UI: platform interfaces cover the corners; keep the subject off the edges
- Keep title space: covers often carry big title text; don't crop the text out
- Center the subject: cover thumbnails are tiny; a centered, enlarged subject reads best
- Leave a safe zone: keep safe distance on all four edges to avoid cropping or overlap
Crop by these principles and the cover displays correctly at any size.
Batch Crop Video Covers
If you're making a video series where all covers use the same template, batch cropping is far more efficient. Upload all covers, set the ratio or size uniformly, and export in one pass — keeping the whole series visually consistent.