Create video thumbnails for email

“Carrier” (an email marketing app like Mailchimp) can’t embed video in email — but a thumbnail with a play button overlay gets clicks.

Extract the poster frame

API

ittybit image \
  -i https://carrier-app.com/campaigns/product-demo.mp4 \
  --start 3 \
  --width 600 \
  --format jpeg \
  --quality high \
  --cloud

const task = {
  input: "https://carrier-app.com/campaigns/product-demo.mp4",
  kind: "image",
  options: {
    start: 3,
    width: 600,
    format: "jpeg",
    quality: "high",
  },
};

const res = await fetch("https://api.ittybit.com/tasks", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.ITTYBIT_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify(task),
});
const data = await res.json();

import requests

task = {
    "input": "https://carrier-app.com/campaigns/product-demo.mp4",
    "kind": "image",
    "options": {
        "start": 3,
        "width": 600,
        "format": "jpeg",
        "quality": "high",
    },
}

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.ittybit.com/tasks",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"},
    json=task,
)
data = res.json()

TASK='{
  "input": "https://carrier-app.com/campaigns/product-demo.mp4",
  "kind": "image",
  "options": {
    "start": 3,
    "width": 600,
    "format": "jpeg",
    "quality": "high"
  }
}'

curl -X POST https://api.ittybit.com/tasks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ITTYBIT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "$TASK"

Use JPEG, not WebP — email clients have poor WebP support.

CLI

ittybit image \
  -i product-demo.mp4 \
  -o email-poster.jpg \
  --start 3 \
  --width 600 \
  --quality high

Why JPEG for email

Format	Gmail	Outlook	Apple Mail
JPEG	Yes	Yes	Yes
PNG	Yes	Yes	Yes
WebP	Partial	No	Yes
AVIF	No	No	Partial

Stick with JPEG for email. Use 600px width — that’s the standard email content width.

Multiple frames to choose from

Not sure which frame looks best? Extract several and pick:

ittybit image \
  -i product-demo.mp4 \
  -o frame-01.jpg \
  --start 1 \
  --width 600

ittybit image \
  -i product-demo.mp4 \
  -o frame-03.jpg \
  --start 3 \
  --width 600

ittybit image \
  -i product-demo.mp4 \
  -o frame-05.jpg \
  --start 5 \
  --width 600

ittybit image \
  -i product-demo.mp4 \
  -o frame-10.jpg \
  --start 10 \
  --width 600