Extract a Frame From a Video

Get a high-quality photo from a video

A screenshot taken during playback gives you an image at screen size, often blurry, sometimes with the player's buttons on top. Here, the image is copied straight from the video, pixel for pixel: a 4K video gives a 3840 × 2160 photo, a 1080p iPhone video a 1920 × 1080 photo, and a video shot vertically stays vertical. It's the best way to pull a photo from a family video, rescue a moment nobody took a picture of, make a YouTube thumbnail or illustrate an article. And since the video is played in your browser, on your device, it's never sent over the internet.

Step frame by frame to capture the exact moment

A video holds 24 to 60 frames per second: the right moment sometimes lasts less than a twentieth of a second. Pause just before it, then use "Previous frame" and "Next frame", or the left and right arrow keys (as well as the comma and period keys). The counter shows the precise timestamp and the frame number. On a computer, these keys only work after you've clicked the player or one of its buttons. The video's frame rate is measured during playback: play it for a few seconds before stepping frame by frame for a perfectly accurate step.

JPG or PNG: which format should you choose?

High-quality JPG is the right choice in almost every case: the photo is sharp, light, and opens anywhere (phone, Word, social media, printing). PNG loses no detail at all: it suits photo editing, capturing text or an interface, or an image you'll keep editing, but it's often 5 to 10 times bigger. Either way, the quality of the capture depends on the video itself: a very fast scene filmed in low light will be blurry whatever frame you pick. In that case, step a few frames forward to find a sharper one.

Convert a video to images: one capture every N seconds

To turn a video into photos, choose an interval, for example one frame per second, and start the extraction: the images are added to the gallery, each with its timestamp, and the "Download all (.zip)" button gets them in one go, named in order. It's handy for spotting the best moment in a long clip, keeping memories from a vacation video, making a storyboard, recovering the slides of a recorded talk or preparing images for a presentation. Each series holds at most 200 images: for a very long video, increase the interval. For an animation rather than still images, use "Video to GIF".