YouTube thumbnail generator with OpenAI & Apify

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/topazsharingan~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: markdown 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](mailto:[email protected]) 🌐 ynteractive.com 🔗 LinkedIn --- 🏷️ Tags openai dalle youtube thumbnail generator apify ai automation image generation illustration prompt engineering gpt-4o