Social Media Image Sizes 2026: What Each Platform's Own Page Says

Social media image sizes are the pixel widths and shapes each network asks for, and for most business posts that means 1080 pixels wide in one of three shapes: square (1:1), portrait (4:5) or vertical (9:16). Platforms change these figures often, so check each one against the platform's own help page before a big campaign.

This article is part of our complete guide: Social Media Post Ideas.

• Instagram uploads photos at the best quality it can, up to 1080 by 1080 pixels, according to the Instagram Help Center page on image resolution.
• Meta for Developers' Instagram media requirements recommend 1:1 in the feed, accept shapes from 1.91:1 to 4:5, require at least 600 pixels of width and recommend 9:16 for Stories.
• YouTube Help recommends thumbnails of 3840 x 2160 pixels for videos (16:9) and 2160 x 3840 for Shorts (9:16), with 640 pixels as the minimum short side.
• TikTok for Business creative best practices (updated June 2025) advise vertical 9:16 at a resolution of at least 720p, with content kept inside the safe zone.

What sizes do the platforms publish today?

Each network publishes its own figures, and they are not all on the same kind of page. The table below gives only what each platform's own page said when we checked it in October 2026, with the source named.

Platform and placement	What the platform's page says	Source
Instagram photo	Uploaded at the best quality possible, up to 1080 x 1080 pixels	Instagram Help Center
Instagram feed (ads)	1:1 recommended; 1.91:1 to 4:5 accepted; at least 600 pixels wide; taller than 4:5 is cropped to 4:5	Meta for Developers
Instagram Stories (ads)	9:16 recommended; at least 600 pixels wide	Meta for Developers
YouTube video thumbnail	3840 x 2160 recommended, 16:9, at least 640 pixels wide, JPG or PNG	YouTube Help
YouTube Shorts thumbnail	2160 x 3840 recommended, 9:16, at least 640 pixels high	YouTube Help
TikTok (ads)	Vertical 9:16, at least 720p, content inside the safe zone	TikTok for Business
LinkedIn document posts (ads)	PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT or PPTX up to 100 MB; vertical, horizontal or square pages	LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Some of these pages are written for advertisers, but ordinary posts sit in the same feeds and are shown in the same frames, so they are the most reliable public guide to the shapes each screen expects. We have not given figures for X here because we did not check its help page for this update, so look at the X Help Center before designing for it. Treat every row as today's answer rather than a permanent rule, because the networks revise these pages without notice.

Which three shapes cover most business posts?

Square, portrait and vertical cover almost every picture a business needs. Design each one 1080 pixels wide and only the height changes.

A square picture is 1080 x 1080 pixels, a 4:5 portrait is 1080 x 1350, and a 9:16 vertical is 1080 x 1920. Those heights are simple arithmetic: divide 1080 by 4 and multiply by 5 for portrait, or divide by 9 and multiply by 16 for vertical. A landscape picture at 1.91:1, the widest shape Meta's page accepts in the Instagram feed, works out at about 1080 x 566, which is why wide pictures look small on a phone.

Portrait is usually the better choice for feed posts because it takes up more of the screen as someone scrolls, while square is the safest shape when one picture must work everywhere. Vertical 9:16 is the shape for Stories, Reels covers, Shorts and TikTok, where the picture fills the whole phone. A bakery in Leeds might keep one square template for menu boards, one portrait template for offers and one vertical template for Stories, and never think about sizes again until a platform changes its page.

The 1080 pixel width comes from Instagram's own help page, which gives 1080 pixels as the most it keeps, so a wider picture gains nothing there, and most feeds show pictures at a similar width on a phone. When you upload a picture wider than the platform keeps, it is scaled down, and scaling can soften small text and fine lines. When you upload one narrower than the minimum, such as below the 600 pixels Meta's page requires, it may be refused or stretched, and stretched pictures look blurred on modern phones.

YouTube is the exception worth knowing. Its help page recommends 3840 x 2160 for thumbnails, and larger artwork holds up on televisions and big monitors as well as phones. Design YouTube thumbnails at that size and export a 1080 pixel copy for other networks if you reuse the artwork.

What happens when a picture is the wrong shape?

The platform crops it, shrinks it or adds bars around it. Meta's page says an Instagram feed image taller than 4:5 is cropped to 4:5 when no cropping is set.

Cropping is the problem that costs businesses most, because the platform decides which part of the picture to cut, and it is often the headline or the phone number near the edge. Meta's page also says that, for Stories ads, a picture between 4:5 and 9:16 is cropped to 4:5 unless the advertiser sets the crop. A wide picture fills less of a tall phone screen, so even when it is accepted it shows smaller and wastes space.

The fix is to design in the shape you will post rather than resize afterwards. If you must reuse an old landscape photo in a portrait post, place it inside a portrait canvas with a plain band of your brand colour above or below for the words. That way you choose what shows, rather than the platform choosing for you.

How do you keep text readable after cropping?

Keep the words and the logo in the middle of the picture, away from every edge. Then check the post on a phone before you publish it.

Platforms lay their own buttons, names and progress bars over the top and bottom of vertical pictures, and TikTok's page tells advertisers to keep content inside the safe zone for that reason. Profile grids and link previews can also show a cropped version of a post. A simple habit is to leave a generous margin at the top and bottom of every vertical picture and at all four sides of square and portrait ones, then put nothing important in it.

Text size matters as much as position. A line that looks large on a computer screen can be unreadable on a phone, so aim for a few short words in a large font rather than a paragraph on the picture. If the message needs more words, put them in the caption or split them across the slides of a carousel.

Should you make one picture or one for each platform?

Make one design and export it in the two or three shapes you actually use. A single shape for every network saves time but loses screen space somewhere.

The practical middle way is a master design with its message centred, then a portrait version for feeds and a vertical version for Stories, Reels covers and Shorts. Square is the fallback when you post the same picture to several networks at once and cannot check each one. For LinkedIn, a carousel is usually posted as a document, and LinkedIn Marketing Solutions lists PDF among the accepted file types, with vertical, horizontal and square pages all allowed.

Doing this by hand for every post takes time, which is the gap tools try to fill. The AI Social Media Post Generator writes each post within its picture's layout and gives you portrait pictures, a story picture, a link card and a PDF of the carousel for LinkedIn, so the shapes are set before you share. Whatever you use, look at each picture on a phone before it goes out.

Do file type and file size matter?

Yes, but less than shape and width. JPG suits photographs, PNG suits graphics with text, and both are accepted by the pages we checked.

YouTube Help says thumbnails can be JPG or PNG, and the size limit depends on the device: 2 MB on mobile for video thumbnails and 50 MB on a computer. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions' document ads specifications allow document files up to 100 MB and recommend keeping them under 10 pages, with 300 pages as the maximum. Meta's media requirements page gives no file size limit for images, so a well exported JPG at 1080 pixels wide is enough for Instagram and Facebook.

Sharpness after upload depends mostly on starting at the right width. Platforms usually compress pictures again, so a picture with crisp, large text in PNG usually survives better than a JPG with fine lettering. If a post looks soft after upload, export it again at exactly 1080 pixels wide rather than larger.

Which Instagram sizes need a closer look?

Two Instagram questions need more detail: the best size for a feed post and the size of a story. Instagram has the most placements for a business to get right.

The first is the best Instagram post size for the feed, where the choice between square and portrait, and how the profile grid previews a post, decides how much of the screen you fill. The second is the Instagram story size, where the vertical shape is simple but the overlays at the top and bottom of the screen decide where text and logos can safely sit. Both build on the three shapes above and go into the details a business owner meets when posting each week.

Questions business owners ask about image sizes

What is the best size for a picture used on every platform?

A square of 1080 x 1080 pixels is the safest single size. Square sits inside the range Meta's page accepts for the Instagram feed and LinkedIn accepts square document pages, though you give up the extra height a portrait post would take.

Does Instagram still accept landscape pictures?

Yes. Meta's page lists 1.91:1 as the widest accepted shape in the Instagram feed, which is about 1080 x 566 pixels, but it takes up far less of the phone screen than portrait.

How big should a YouTube thumbnail be?

YouTube Help recommends 3840 x 2160 pixels at 16:9 for videos and 2160 x 3840 at 9:16 for Shorts. The minimum is 640 pixels on the short side, in JPG or PNG.

Will my picture look blurred if it is too small?

It can. Pictures narrower than the platform's display width are stretched, and Meta's page sets 600 pixels as the minimum width, so start at 1080 pixels to stay well clear of that.

How often do these sizes change?

There is no fixed timetable, and the platforms do not announce every change. Check the platform's help page before a campaign and look at a test post on your own phone.

Set up three picture templates this week

Make three templates, one for each shape, and test one post in each. That is an afternoon's work that saves resizing every week.

Open your design app and make three blank canvases: 1080 x 1080 for square, 1080 x 1350 for portrait and 1080 x 1920 for vertical. Add your logo and brand colours to each, mark a wide margin around the edges, and save them as templates you reuse for every post. The next time a platform changes its guidance, you only need to adjust one template rather than every picture.

Then post one test picture in each shape to the networks you use and check them on a phone, including the profile grid and how the post looks when shared as a link. Write down anything that crops badly and adjust the margins. If you would rather start from finished posts, type your website into the AI Social Media Post Generator and see three posts with their captions, laid out in the shapes above.