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:
https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?authuser=0&sz=w320&id=<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> // where <GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> is the file id
- https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?authuser=0&sz=w320&id=<GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID>
- // where <GOOGLE_DRIVE_FILE_ID> is the file id
The shareable link to the file will be something like:
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
- 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
Methods of getting the File ID #1
- Right-click on the file and select "Get Shareable Link".
- 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.
- 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.