Social Media Image Sizes (Reference)
Quick answer
| Use | Dimensions | Aspect ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Square post | 1080 × 1080 | 1:1 |
| Portrait post | 1080 × 1350 | 4:5 |
| Vertical story / reel | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 |
| Landscape post | 1200 × 630 | 1.91:1 |
| YouTube thumbnail | 1280 × 720 | 16:9 |
Aspect ratio matters more than the exact pixel count
Platforms scale whatever you upload to fit their layout, so an image that is a little too big is harmless. What they cannot fix is the shape. Upload a 3:2 camera frame where a 4:5 portrait is expected and the platform either crops the sides or asks you to; upload a 16:9 photo into a 9:16 story slot and most of the frame is lost. Decide the ratio first, crop to it, and only then worry about the number of pixels.
Keep anything that must survive — faces, prices, a logo — inside the central two thirds of the frame. Stories and reels overlay their own controls along the top and bottom edges, and feed previews frequently show a centre crop of the full image.
Preparing a phone photo: the arithmetic
Resize for Instagram performs that crop-to-fill and scale in one step for the square, portrait, story and landscape frames. For any other size, Image Resizer takes an exact width and height, and Image Studio resizes a whole batch by width, height, percentage or fit-within without ever enlarging an image that is already too small.
File size and quality on upload
Every platform re-compresses what you send, so there is no benefit in uploading a 10 MB master; it will be squeezed to a few hundred kilobytes regardless. A 1080-wide JPG saved at 80–90% quality is typically a few hundred kilobytes, uploads quickly, and gives the platform's encoder a clean source. What does hurt is uploading something smaller than the display size and letting the platform enlarge it — that is where soft, blurry posts come from.
Text-heavy graphics — quote cards, announcements, infographics — are the one case where a PNG upload is worth the extra megabytes: the platform will convert it anyway, but it starts from crisp lettering instead of JPG halos, and the result reads better on small screens. Photographs gain nothing from PNG and should stay JPG.
For the one verified entry in the table, YouTube's help page states a custom thumbnail should be 1280 × 720 (16:9), under 2 MB, as JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP. A 1920 × 1080 screenshot resized by width to 1280 lands at exactly 720 tall, and a JPG at that size is comfortably under the limit.
| Where | Prepare | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Feed post, most reach | 4:5 portrait | Occupies the most vertical screen space in a feed |
| Feed post, safest | 1:1 square | Displays unchanged on every platform that supports it |
| Story / reel cover | 9:16 vertical | Fills the phone screen; keep key content central |
| Link preview / open graph | 1.91:1 landscape | Matches the wide card most link previews render |
| YouTube thumbnail | 16:9, 1280 × 720 | Stated on YouTube's help page |
Troubleshooting
- The post looks blurry after uploading.
- The source was smaller than the display size or saved at a very low quality. Re-export at 1080 px on the short edge, 80% or higher, and upload again.
- Important parts are cut off.
- You uploaded the wrong ratio and the platform cropped it. Crop to the target ratio yourself so you control what goes.
- A transparent PNG shows a black background.
- The platform flattened it. Convert to JPG with a white (or brand-colour) background before uploading.
Sources
- Add video thumbnails — Google (YouTube) · verified 2026-06-19
Last verified · reviewed frequently.
Change history
- — Initial publication (YouTube thumbnail verified; others documented with caveats).