Get thumbnail from video URL in background Swift

When we are working on the projects, this is most often that we need to show the video thumbnail image. In this article, we will generate a video thumbnail image from URL in the background queue. Once it’s done we will use a closure and pass this image in the main queue.
Import AVFoundation library in your class and add below code.

import AVFoundation

Now add below code.

func getThumbnailImageFromVideoUrl(url: URL, completion: @escaping ((_ image: UIImage?)->Void)) {
    DispatchQueue.global().async { //1
        let asset = AVAsset(url: url) //2
        let avAssetImageGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset) //3
        avAssetImageGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true //4
        let thumnailTime = CMTimeMake(value: 2, timescale: 1) //5
        do {
            let cgThumbImage = try avAssetImageGenerator.copyCGImage(at: thumnailTime, actualTime: nil) //6
            let thumbImage = UIImage(cgImage: cgThumbImage) //7
            DispatchQueue.main.async { //8
                completion(thumbImage) //9
            }
        } catch {
            print(error.localizedDescription) //10
            DispatchQueue.main.async {
                completion(nil) //11
            }
        }
    }
}

Now set the thumbnail in your UIImageView using above function

self.getThumbnailImageFromVideoUrl(url: videoUrl) { (thumbImage) in
    self.myImageView.image = thumImage
}

1.Get global background queue so that our code runs in the background and won’t affect the main queue anymore
2.Create an object of AVAsset class and pass the video URL as parameter
3.Now create AVAssetImageGenerator class object which will generate the video thumbnail CGImage
4.Mark appliesPreferredTrackTransform property as true so that the orientation of thumbnail will be correct
5.Time of video where thumbnail will be picked
6.Get the CGImage using copyCGImage function of AVAssetImageGenerator class
7.Convert CGImage into UIImage
8 & 9.Get the main queue and pass the thumbnail image in completion closure
10.If something went wrong print the error
11.Return nil in case of failure
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