Resize Image for Instagram

Instagram's formats and aspect ratios

Instagram displays feed images at 1080 pixels wide. Uploading wider just gets scaled down, and uploading narrower than about 320 pixels gets scaled up and looks soft. Photos wider or taller than the supported shapes are cropped when you post, so choosing a preset here lets you decide what gets trimmed instead of leaving it to the app.

Portrait gets the most attention

In a scrolling feed, a 4:5 portrait post is 25% taller than a square one and about 2.4 times the height of a 1.91:1 landscape post. More screen means more time in view, which is why photographers and brands default to portrait for feed posts.

Since early 2025 the profile grid shows thumbnails as 3:4 rectangles rather than squares, so a thin strip at the sides of each post is hidden on your profile page, though not in the feed. Keep faces and text away from the far left and right edges and they'll look right in both places.

Stories and Reels: mind the safe zone

A 1080 × 1920 story fills the whole screen, but Instagram draws your name and the progress bar over the top and the reply box or caption over the bottom. As a rule of thumb, keep text and faces out of roughly the top 250 and bottom 340 pixels. Crop to fill trims evenly from the top and bottom of a tall photo, or from both sides of a wide one — so if your subject sits near an edge, crop it yourself first.

Keeping photos sharp after upload

• Export at exactly 1080 pixels wide — the presets here already do — so Instagram doesn't have to rescale.
• Upload over Wi-Fi when you can. The app may lower upload quality on a weak mobile connection; its data and media quality settings include an option to always upload at the highest quality.
• Avoid screenshots of photos, which add a second round of compression and usually the wrong size.
• Go easy on sharpening before uploading, because Instagram's own compression exaggerates it into halos around edges.