Add a video thumbnail image

You can choose a thumbnail image that will show when videos uploaded to ThoughtFarmer are embedded in intranet pages, or when videos are displayed in News Carousels.

If you don't add a thumbnail image, by default the frame five seconds into the video will be used as the thumbnail image. If you are an administrator, you can change the default time used to select the thumbnail images. To learn more, see Change default video thumbnail frame.

Video thumbnail displaying in a News Carousel card

Add a video thumbnail

1. Navigate to the individual file page. To do this, go to the page the file is uploaded to, click the file title, and click Edit file details in the menu that opens.
2. In edit mode, under the Thumbnail section on the right, click Add image. The Choose Image pop-up window will appear.
   
   
    
3. To add an image, do one of the following:
   • Drag and drop images onto the window.
   • Click on Upload Images at the top, or click on the camera icon in the window.
   • Click on the Unsplash tab (and see Insert photos from Unsplash for more details).
   • Click on one of the displayed galleries, and select an image from the gallery.
4. If you chose the second option in step 3, browse to the image you want, click once on the photo file and then click Open in your file browsing window to upload it.
   
   
    
5. After uploading, your image will show in the window. Click the Done button.
6. The Thumbnail settings pop-up window will appear, which allows you to crop the image for two different applications: Video thumbnail and Carousel. Select the tab you want to crop. The Carousel tab has three crop areas to accommodate different carousel layouts.
   
   
    
7. Use the plus and minus buttons below the image (or the scroll wheel on your mouse) to zoom in or out. (However, note that the image will adjust when viewing to fill the whole video frame.)
8. Click on the image and drag it to show the area you want. (Repeat steps 6 to 8 if you want the image cropped for all applications.)
9. For the Carousel crop options, if background color shows around the image because of the zoom or crop, select one of the four background colors.
10. Click Done in the Thumbnail settings pop-up window. You will see the image you have uploaded under the Thumbnail heading on the right.
11. Continue editing or click Save at the top of the page. You will now see the thumbnail image displayed where the video is.

Note that adjusting the image crop may not change the way the Thumbnail image looks in the Thumbnail section on the right, but your cropping is saved in the Thumbnail settings window.

To learn more, see How to crop a thumbnail image.

Use page header image for video thumbnail image

When you add a new page header image, a new option becomes available in the Thumbnail image section - to use the page header image for the Thumbnail image. If the page header image is the only image available on the page, it will automatically be selected as the thumbnail image.

If there are multiple images available on the page, add the page header image to the page, then under the Thumbnail heading on the right, select the checkbox Use page header image. The page header image will show in the Thumbnail section, and if you change the page header image in the future, the Thumbnail image will automatically change.