idea Allow Thumbnails to be Downloaded for Layer Items in ArcGIS Online Ideas

Allow Thumbnails to be Downloaded for Layer Items

JonM32 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:38:21 GMT

Good morning Esri,

I would like the ability to download a thumbnail I uploaded for an item in ArcGIS Online.

It's common for me to create a custom thumbnail for a layer item and then weeks down the road I will need to use that thumbnail for something else. For example, our enterprise portal or a different item in ArcGIS Online. it would be super useful to just go to an item page and have a button to download that thumbnail. This function could be added to the already existing button for uploading thumbnails.

Yes, I know I should just save the thumbnails locally somewhere, but it's often forgotten and I find it odd that once we upload a thumbnail to ArcGIS Online, you can't get it back out.

Please see screenshot for an example.

Re: Allow Thumbnails to be Downloaded for Layer Items

jkl178 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:50:50 GMT

If you right click on the image, you'll see some options to save the image. However, I don't think the image quality will be the same as the original

Re: Allow Thumbnails to be Downloaded for Layer Items

BobBooth1 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:10:14 GMT

You can find the REST sharing URL for thumbnails from the item details page.

Open the details page.

Open Developer tools for your browser.

Click Elements.

Search for thumbnail.

Page through the results to a rest URL in your org with thumbnail in the path.

Right-click and copy the element.

Paste that into a text doc.

Copy the URL and open it in a new browser tab.

Save the image from there.

Re: Allow Thumbnails to be Downloaded for Layer Items

BernSzukalski — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:05:50 GMT

The above will give you a thumbnail of 400px wide, not quite the 600x400px original size. I have found via experimentation that you can hack it by using w=1000. Don't ask me why this delivers a larger width image, but it does. I do all my thumbnails at 600x399 (Virgos will know this is the exact px) and save them as PNG for best results (crispest across all the sizes the thumbnail is used within the ecosystem).

So to grab a thumbnail _nearly_ at original size, you can follow Bob's instructions above, or right-click on the the thumbnail and open it in a new tab, remove most everything after the ?, and just add/substitute w=1000 at the end. Here is an example from one of my items.

https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/539baade18054022865f6e279acf28b9/info/thumbnail/thumbnail1720729996362.png?w=1000

https://igcglg.maps.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/9caff1bacad145f3b312956e1e639e06/info/thumbnail/thumbnail1761452791083.png?w=1000

That gives you a 594x396px PNG. Close enough, but I think this is just a bit better result than using a 400px wide thumbnail.

But yes, I agree, it would be nice to be able to get at the original thumbnail easier.

Re: Allow Thumbnails to be Downloaded for Layer Items

JonM32 — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 15:58:04 GMT

@jkl178 This seems like the best option so far. The quality seems a bit off but still useable.

@BobBooth1 Thanks for the idea. I tried but to be honest, had trouble finding the url in the inspector and eventually was confused by everything going on in there. Might be a better option for folks more familiar with web development.

@BernSzukalski Thanks for the input!