diff --git a/openpype/hosts/maya/plugins/publish/extract_active_view_thumbnail.py b/openpype/hosts/maya/plugins/publish/extract_active_view_thumbnail.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..483ae6d9d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/openpype/hosts/maya/plugins/publish/extract_active_view_thumbnail.py
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+import maya.api.OpenMaya as om
+import maya.api.OpenMayaUI as omui
+
+import pyblish.api
+import tempfile
+
+from openpype.hosts.maya.api.lib import IS_HEADLESS
+
+
+class ExtractActiveViewThumbnail(pyblish.api.InstancePlugin):
+    """Set instance thumbnail to a screengrab of current active viewport.
+
+    This makes it so that if an instance does not have a thumbnail set yet that
+    it will get a thumbnail of the currently active view at the time of
+    publishing as a fallback.
+
+    """
+    order = pyblish.api.ExtractorOrder + 0.49
+    label = "Active View Thumbnail"
+    families = ["workfile"]
+    hosts = ["maya"]
+
+    def process(self, instance):
+        if IS_HEADLESS:
+            self.log.debug(
+                "Skip extraction of active view thumbnail, due to being in"
+                "headless mode."
+            )
+            return
+
+        thumbnail = instance.data.get("thumbnailPath")
+        if not thumbnail:
+            view_thumbnail = self.get_view_thumbnail(instance)
+            if not view_thumbnail:
+                return
+
+            self.log.debug("Setting instance thumbnail path to: {}".format(
+                view_thumbnail
+            ))
+            instance.data["thumbnailPath"] = view_thumbnail
+
+    def get_view_thumbnail(self, instance):
+        cache_key = "__maya_view_thumbnail"
+        context = instance.context
+
+        if cache_key not in context.data:
+            # Generate only a single thumbnail, even for multiple instances
+            with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix="_thumbnail.jpg",
+                                             delete=False) as f:
+                path = f.name
+
+            view = omui.M3dView.active3dView()
+            image = om.MImage()
+            view.readColorBuffer(image, True)
+            image.writeToFile(path, "jpg")
+            self.log.debug("Generated thumbnail: {}".format(path))
+
+            context.data["cleanupFullPaths"].append(path)
+            context.data[cache_key] = path
+        return context.data[cache_key]