YouTube now lets you change playlist images (but there's a catch)
YouTube is working on a nice feature for playlists: the ability to add thumbnails. Right now, you can use any image as a thumbnail for your videos, but that isn't an option for playlists. Video playlists on the social media platform automatically pick the thumbnail from the first video of the playlist. You can only change this thumbnail if you move a different video to the top of the playlist.
This will now change with the latest YouTube app update. YouTube has been working on adding this feature for a while now, and it was first spotted in the code of the YouTube app back in June. It's now rolling out to users with YouTube version 19.37.35.
Luckily, if you choose to verify your phone number, you should get access to a new button with a pencil icon in the bottom right corner of playlist thumbnails. When you tap on it, you can open an edit menu.
It works similarly to the AI-enabled album art generation feature that is currently available for playlists in YouTube Music. When you select a theme, you get generated sample images based on a prompt. You can modify parts of the prompt by tapping the text, but you can't use your custom prompt at this moment. You can also use a Randomize button for a new set of images.
Yep, this seems better than not giving you any option to change the thumbnail of the playlist, but I still think giving you the full ability to change the photo and add a custom photo should be implemented. Here's to hoping we'll see the full functionality of such a feature soon!
However, here's the catch. There are a few curious limitations to the implementation. First off, in order to be able to add a thumbnail image to your playlist, your account has to be verified. This pretty much means that most people won't get the feature right away, or they'll have to verify their phone number on YouTube to get access to it.
Luckily, if you choose to verify your phone number, you should get access to a new button with a pencil icon in the bottom right corner of playlist thumbnails. When you tap on it, you can open an edit menu.
And here, we have the second curious limitation to this functionality. The edit menu basically gives you the option to create a thumbnail with AI or to remove the custom image. Curiously enough, you cannot upload a custom image, so you can't really choose an image that you like.
It works similarly to the AI-enabled album art generation feature that is currently available for playlists in YouTube Music. When you select a theme, you get generated sample images based on a prompt. You can modify parts of the prompt by tapping the text, but you can't use your custom prompt at this moment. You can also use a Randomize button for a new set of images.
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