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YouTube Thumbnail Generator with OpenAI & Apify

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Created by: Robert Breen || rbreen

Robert Breen

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Last update 3 days ago

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This n8n workflow automatically generates a custom YouTube thumbnail using OpenAI’s DALL·E based on a YouTube video’s transcript and title. It uses Apify actors to extract video metadata and transcript, then processes the data into a prompt for DALL·E and creates a high-resolution image for use as a thumbnail.


✅ Key Features

  • 📥 Form Trigger: Accepts a YouTube URL from the user.
  • 🧠 GPT-4o Prompt Creation: Summarizes transcript and title into a descriptive DALL·E prompt.
  • 🎨 DALL·E Image Generation: Produces a clean, minimalist YouTube thumbnail with OpenAI’s image model.
  • 🪄 Automatic Image Resizing: Resizes final image to YouTube specs (1280x720).
  • 🔍 Apify Integration: Uses two Apify actors:
    • Youtube-Transcript-Scraper to extract transcript
    • youtube-scraper to get video metadata like title, channel, etc.

🧰 What You'll Need

  • OpenAI API Key
  • Apify Account & API Token
  • YouTube video URL
  • n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)

🔧 Step-by-Step Setup

1️⃣ Form & Parameter Assignment

  • Node: Form Trigger
  • How it works: Collects the YouTube URL via a form embedded in your n8n instance.
  • API Required: None
  • Additional Node: Set
    • Converts the single input URL into the format Apify expects: an array of { url } objects.

2️⃣ Apify Actors for Data Extraction

  • Node: HTTP Request (Query Metadata)
    • URL: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/streamers~youtube-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items
    • Payload: JSON with startUrls array and filtering options like maxResults, isHD, etc.
  • Node: HTTP Request (Query Transcript)
    • URL: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/topaz_sharingan~Youtube-Transcript-Scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items
    • Payload: startUrls array
  • API Required: Apify API Token (via HTTP Query Auth)
  • Notes: You must have an Apify account and actor credits to use these actors.

3️⃣ OpenAI GPT-4o & DALL·E Generation

  • Node: OpenAI (Prompt Creator)
    • Uses the transcript and title to generate a DALL·E-compatible visual prompt.
  • Node: OpenAI (Image Generator)
    • Resource: image
    • Model: DALL·E (default with GPT-4o key)
  • API Required: OpenAI API Key
  • Prompt Strategy:
Create a minimalist YouTube thumbnail in an illustration style. The background should be a very simple, uncluttered setting with soft, ambient lighting that subtly reflects the essence of the transcript. The overall mood should be professional and non-cluttered, ensuring that the text overlay stands out without distraction. Do not include any text.

4️⃣ Resize for YouTube Format

  • Node: Edit Image
  • Purpose: Resize final image to 1280x720 with ignoreAspectRatio set to true.
  • No API required — this runs entirely in n8n.

👤 Created By

Robert Breen
Automation Consultant | AI Workflow Designer | n8n Expert
📧 [email protected]
🌐 ynteractive.com
🔗 LinkedIn


🏷️ Tags

openai dalle youtube thumbnail generator apify ai automation image generation illustration prompt engineering gpt-4o