Social Media Image Sizes 2026 — The Complete Cheat Sheet
You upload a perfectly good banner to LinkedIn and the text gets chopped off on mobile. Your Instagram carousel looks great on your phone but the edges get cropped in the feed preview. You design a YouTube thumbnail and the bottom-right corner is hidden behind the video duration stamp.
These problems all come down to one thing: platform-specific image dimensions. Each social network uses different aspect ratios, different resolutions, and different crop behaviours depending on where the image appears — feed, story, profile, banner, link preview. This guide covers every major platform's requirements for 2026, updated as of August.
Instagram image sizes
Instagram started as a square-only app and now takes several ratios, each cropped differently depending on where it appears.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed post (square) | 1080 × 1080 | 1:1 | Anything larger is downscaled to 1080px on the longest edge |
| Feed post (portrait) | 1080 × 1350 | 4:5 | The most vertical space the feed allows; taller triggers a crop |
| Feed post (landscape) | 1080 × 566 | 1.91:1 | Rarely used — looks small next to portrait and square |
| Story / Reel | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 | Keep content clear of the top 250px and bottom 250px overlays |
| Carousel | 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350 | 1:1 or 4:5 | The first image sets the ratio for the whole set |
| Profile photo | 320 × 320 | 1:1 | Shown as a circle; Instagram will not upscale a smaller file |
For more detail on Instagram specifically, see the full Instagram image sizes guide.
Facebook image sizes
Facebook crops the same image differently in the feed, the right column and marketplace, so the ratio matters more than the pixel count.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed post (link share) | 1200 × 630 | 1.91:1 | The safest ratio for link previews |
| Feed post (photo) | 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350 | 1:1 or 4:5 | Standalone photos |
| Cover photo | 820 × 312 desktop, 640 × 360 mobile | — | Design on an 820 × 360 canvas and keep anything critical in the centre 640 × 312 |
| Event cover | 1920 × 1005 | 1.91:1 | Same ratio as the link preview, larger file |
| Group cover | 1640 × 856 | 1.91:1 | Groups differ from pages |
| Profile photo | 170 × 170 desktop, 128 × 128 mobile | 1:1 | Shown as a circle |
| Story | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 | Same as Instagram |
The cover photo is the hardest one to get right: desktop and mobile show substantially different crops of the same file.
X (Twitter) image sizes
X crops to 16:9 in the timeline and shows the full image once it is clicked.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-stream image | 1600 × 900 | 16:9 | Up to 4096 × 4096 is accepted; square and portrait get letterboxed in the preview |
| Header / banner | 1500 × 500 | 3:1 | The left side is partly covered by the profile photo on desktop |
| Profile photo | 400 × 400 | 1:1 | Shown as a circle |
| Card image (link preview) | 800 × 418 | 1.91:1 | For summary_large_image cards |
If your site's OpenGraph image is smaller than 800 × 418, the link preview will look blurry.
LinkedIn image sizes
LinkedIn crops vertical images aggressively in the feed, so square or landscape works better.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed post | 1200 × 1200 or 1200 × 627 | 1:1 or 1.91:1 | Square or landscape |
| Document post (PDF carousel) | — | 1:1.27 | Displayed ratio |
| Company page cover | 1128 × 191 | 5.9:1 | Very little vertical space — use it as a brand bar, not a graphic |
| Personal profile banner | 1584 × 396 | 4:1 | More room than the company cover |
| Profile photo | 400 × 400 | 1:1 | Shown as a circle |
| Article cover | 1200 × 644 | 1.86:1 | Appears above the article and in the feed preview |
TikTok image sizes
TikTok is vertical-first, and photo carousels use the same shape as video.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video / photo carousel | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 | Up to 35 images, all at the same ratio |
| Profile photo | 400 × 400 | 1:1 | 200 × 200 is the minimum; 400 × 400 stays sharp on high-DPI screens |
YouTube image sizes
The thumbnail is the one that decides whether anyone clicks.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thumbnail | 1280 × 720 | 16:9 | Under 2 MB; keep the bottom-right clear of the duration stamp |
| Channel banner | 2560 × 1440 | 16:9 | Only the centre 1546 × 423 is visible on every device |
| Profile photo | 800 × 800 | 1:1 | Shown as a circle |
YouTube recommends 1280 × 720 as a minimum and compresses thumbnails hard, so upload at maximum quality and keep text large enough to read on a phone.
Pinterest image sizes
Taller pins take more room in the feed, up to a point.
| Image type | Dimensions (px) | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard pin | 1000 × 1500 | 2:3 | Pins taller than 1:2.1 are truncated with a “See more” overlay |
| Idea pin / story pin | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 | Same shape as Instagram and TikTok stories |
| Profile photo | 165 × 165 | 1:1 | Shown as a circle |
Image format and file size recommendations
All major platforms accept JPG and PNG. For photographs, JPG is the right choice — smaller files, faster uploads. For graphics with text, logos, or sharp edges, PNG preserves crispness better. None of the major platforms accept HEIC directly in their web uploaders — convert to JPG first.
WebP is accepted by Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn but not universally — Twitter/X still doesn't accept WebP uploads as of mid-2026. Stick with JPG for maximum compatibility across all platforms.
File size limits vary by platform: Instagram caps at 30MB for photos, X at 5MB for images in tweets (16MB for DMs), LinkedIn at 10MB, Pinterest at 32MB per image. If your image exceeds the limit, the image compressor can bring it down without visible quality loss.
Colour space should be sRGB for all social media. Images in Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB colour spaces can look desaturated on screens because most displays and web browsers assume sRGB. If you're exporting from Lightroom or Photoshop, make sure the colour space dropdown says sRGB — it's easy to miss when you're batch exporting and the default might be Adobe RGB.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I upload the wrong size?
The platform will resize and/or crop your image to fit. This often chops off edges, compresses text to the point of unreadability, or adds letterboxing bars. Uploading at the correct dimensions avoids all of this and gives you full control over how the image appears.
Should I use PNG or JPG for social media?
JPG for photographs. PNG for graphics with text, logos, or flat colours. JPG is lossy but the compression artefacts are invisible in photographs. PNG preserves sharp edges but produces larger files.
Do these sizes change often?
Instagram and Facebook tweak their dimensions roughly once a year. LinkedIn and YouTube change less often. The 9:16 story format has been stable across all platforms for several years now. This guide is current as of mid-2026.
Can I resize images for multiple platforms at once?
The image resizer lets you set exact pixel dimensions, so you can create each platform-specific version from a single source image. Start with your highest-resolution source and resize down for each platform.
Why do my images look blurry after posting?
Every platform re-compresses uploads. Starting with higher resolution (at least the recommended dimensions) and lower existing compression (JPG quality 92+) minimizes quality loss from the platform's recompression.
