To restore animated thumbnail previews, requires inline previews to be disabled in your YouTube settings. Note: not Greasemonkey compatible. v2.0 adds fallback option of a still image carousel for the homepage where YouTube has changed their data structure to no longer provide an_webp animated thumbnail urls, which is affecting some users; for such users non-homepage pages are unaffected and continue to use the an_webp animated thumbs.
// ==UserScript== // @name Restore animated thumbnail previews - youtube.com // @namespace Violentmonkey Scripts seekhare // @match http*://www.youtube.com/* // @run-at document-start // @grant GM_addStyle // @version 2.0 // @license MIT // @author seekhare // @description To restore animated thumbnail previews, requires inline previews to be disabled in your YouTube settings. Note: not Greasemonkey compatible. v2.0 adds fallback option of a still image carousel for the homepage where YouTube has changed their data structure to no longer provide an_webp animated thumbnail urls, which is affecting some users; for such users non-homepage pages are unaffected and continue to use the an_webp animated thumbs. // ==/UserScript== Object.defineProperties(Object.prototype,{isPreviewDisabled:{get:function(){return false}, set:function(){}}}); // old way preferred and none-the-less still valid for non-homepage pages for affected users. fadeInCSS = `img.animatedThumbTarget { animation: fadeIn 0.5s; object-fit: cover;} @keyframes fadeIn { 0% { opacity: 0; } 100% { opacity: 1; } } `; GM_addStyle(fadeInCSS); const forceDisableNewHomepageMethod = false; // force disable the new homepage method. const forceEnableNewHomepageMethod = false; // force disable takes priority over force enable. const logHeader = 'UserScript Restore YT Animated Thumbs:'; const homeUrl = 'https://www.youtube.com/'; const ytImageBaseUrl = 'https://i.ytimg.com/vi/'; const ytImageNames = ['hq1.jpg', 'hq2.jpg', 'hq3.jpg']; // e.g. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UujGYE5mOnI/0.jpg const carouselDelay = 850; //milliseconds, how long to display each image. function animatedThumbsEventEnter(event) { //console.debug(logHeader, 'enter', event); var target = event.target; //console.debug(logHeader, 'target', target); if (target.querySelector('div[aria-label="LIVE"]') != null) { // don't apply to video tiles that are live, can't do in observer as child element not present then. target.removeEventListener('mouseenter', animatedThumbsEventEnter); target.removeEventListener('mouseleave', animatedThumbsEventLeave); return } var atag = target.querySelector('a#thumbnail'); //console.debug(logHeader, 'atag', atag); if (atag.hasAttribute('videoId') === false) { //extract videoId from href and store on an attribute var videoId = atag.getAttribute('href').match(/watch\?v=([^&]*)/)[1]; //the href is like "/watch?v=IDabc123&t=123" so regex. //console.debug(logHeader, 'videoId', videoId); atag.setAttribute('videoId', videoId); } var animatedImgNode = document.createElement("img"); animatedImgNode.setAttribute('videoId', atag.getAttribute('videoId')); animatedImgNode.setAttribute("carouselIndex", 0); animatedImgNode.setAttribute("id", "thumbnail"); animatedImgNode.setAttribute("class", "style-scope ytd-moving-thumbnail-renderer fade-in animatedThumbTarget"); //animatedThumbTarget is custom class, others are Youtube updateCarousel(animatedImgNode); var overlaytag = target.querySelector('div#mouseover-overlay'); overlaytag.appendChild(animatedImgNode); animatedImgNode.timer = setInterval(updateCarousel, carouselDelay, animatedImgNode); return } function animatedThumbsEventLeave(event) { //console.debug(logHeader, 'leave', event); try { var animatedImgNode = event.target.querySelector('img.animatedThumbTarget'); clearTimeout(animatedImgNode.timer); animatedImgNode.remove(); } catch {} return } function updateCarousel(animatedImgNode) { var index = parseInt(animatedImgNode.getAttribute("carouselIndex")); //console.debug(logHeader, 'index', index); var imgURL = ytImageBaseUrl + animatedImgNode.getAttribute('videoId') + '/' + ytImageNames[index]; animatedImgNode.setAttribute("src", imgURL); var nextIndex = (index+1) % ytImageNames.length; animatedImgNode.setAttribute("carouselIndex", nextIndex); } function useNewSearchMethod() { if (forceDisableNewHomepageMethod) { return false } else if (forceEnableNewHomepageMethod) { return true } if (window.location.pathname === '/') { console.debug(logHeader, 'Pathname check method'); if (document.head.innerHTML.indexOf('an_webp') != -1 || document.body.innerHTML.indexOf('an_webp') != -1) { return false } else { return true } } else { // if not entered youtube via homepage then do a request here to determine if user's homepage is affected by YouTube's changes removing animated thumbs. console.debug(logHeader, 'XMLHttpRequest check method'); const request = new XMLHttpRequest(); request.open("GET", homeUrl, false); // `false` makes the request synchronous request.send(null); if (request.status === 200) { //console.debug('response', request.responseText); var trimmedResponseIndex = request.responseText.indexOf('an_webp/'); if (trimmedResponseIndex != -1) { return false } else { return true } } else { console.error(logHeader, 'Could not GET "'+homeUrl+'". Response Status = '+request.status, request.statusText); return true } } } function runPageCheckForExistingElements() { //Can run this just incase some elements were already created before observer set up. var list = document.getElementsByTagName("ytd-rich-item-renderer"); for (var element of list) { //console.debug(logHeader, element); element.addEventListener('mouseenter', animatedThumbsEventEnter); element.addEventListener('mouseleave', animatedThumbsEventLeave); } } function setupMutationObserverSingle() { if (useNewSearchMethod() === false) { return console.log(logHeader, "Using old method only (preferred), disabling new method.") } console.log(logHeader, "Enabling new image method for homepage.") const targetNode = document; //console.debug('targetNodeInit',targetNode); const config = {attributes: false, childList: true, subtree: true}; const callback = (mutationList, observer) => { for (const mutation of mutationList) { //console.debug(logHeader, "Mutation", mutation); for (const element of mutation.addedNodes) { if (element.nodeName === 'YTD-RICH-ITEM-RENDERER') { //console.debug(logHeader, "Adding event listeners to element", element); element.addEventListener('mouseenter', animatedThumbsEventEnter); element.addEventListener('mouseleave', animatedThumbsEventLeave); } } } } const observer = new MutationObserver(callback); observer.observe(targetNode, config); runPageCheckForExistingElements(); } document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(){ setupMutationObserverSingle() });