Display a thumbnail of a Google Drive video

What?
A super quick article to show how to link to the thumbnail image of a Google Drive file, in this case a video file.

How?
The hardest part of this is to get the Google Drive File ID (which you need for the below). The image link (src) will be as below but then this is a redirect to the actual thumbnail stored by Google Drive:
copyraw
https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?authuser=0&sz=w320&id=<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>

// where <GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> is the file id
  1.  https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?authuser=0&sz=w320&id=<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> 
  2.   
  3.  // where <GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> is the file id 

The shareable link to the file will be something like:
copyraw
https://drive.google.com/file/d/<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>/view?usp=sharing

// to link/display in apps:
https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?authuser=0&sz=w320&id=<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>

// redirects to something like:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/<A_DIFFERENT_LONG_GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>=w320
  1.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>/view?usp=sharing 
  2.   
  3.  // to link/display in apps: 
  4.  https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?authuser=0&sz=w320&id=<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> 
  5.   
  6.  // redirects to something like: 
  7.  https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/<A_DIFFERENT_LONG_GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>=w320 

Methods of getting the File ID #1
  1. Right-click on the file and select "Get Shareable Link".
  2. If link sharing is already on, it will display a link such as: https://drive.google.com/open?id=<SOME_ALPHANUMERIC_CHARACTERS>, where <SOME_ALPHANUMERIC_CHARACTERS> is the file ID.
  3. If not the "Share with Others" dialog will popup and the file ID will be in the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/<SOME_ALPHANUMERIC_CHARACTERS>/view?usp=sharing, where <SOME_ALPHANUMERIC_CHARACTERS> is the file ID.
Category: Google :: Article: 654

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Joel Lipman
www.joellipman.com

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