You spent twenty minutes designing the perfect post graphic. You uploaded it. And then Instagram cropped half your headline off. Sound familiar?
Here's the thing — every platform wants different pixel dimensions, and they all silently butcher your images when you get it wrong. Blurry upscaling, awkward crops, chopped text. The fix is simple: start with the right size. This is the only cheat sheet you need for social media image sizes in 2026.
Instagram image sizes
Instagram is the pickiest platform when it comes to dimensions. It also compresses uploads aggressively, so starting at the correct size is the single best thing you can do to keep your images sharp.
- Square post: 1080 × 1080 px
- Portrait post: 1080 × 1350 px (highest engagement — takes up more feed space)
- Landscape post: 1080 × 566 px
- Story / Reel: 1080 × 1920 px (9:16 ratio)
- Profile picture: 320 × 320 px (rendered as a circle)
- Carousel: 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350 px (every slide must share the same aspect ratio)
So what size should an Instagram post image be? For most creators, 1080 × 1350 portrait is the move. It fills more of the screen on mobile, which means more eyeballs on your content before they scroll past. Always upload at exactly 1080px wide — anything smaller gets upscaled and blurred; anything larger gets downscaled, which is fine but wasteful.
If you don't want to do pixel math every time, the Social Media Image Resizer has presets for every Instagram format. Pick the platform, drop your image, done.
Facebook post dimensions
Facebook compresses images harder than any other platform. Uploading at higher resolution than you'd expect actually helps.
- Feed post / link preview: 1200 × 630 px (1.91:1)
- Square post: 1200 × 1200 px
- Story: 1080 × 1920 px
- Cover photo: 820 × 312 px on desktop, 640 × 360 px on mobile — the safe zone visible everywhere is roughly the center 640 × 312 px
- Profile picture: 176 × 176 px (circle crop)
- Event cover: 1200 × 628 px
- Group cover: 1640 × 856 px
One thing to know: Facebook converts PNGs to JPEG on upload. Transparent backgrounds turn white. If your design relies on transparency, you'll need to rethink the background or accept the white fill.
X (Twitter) image sizes
X has a quirk that catches people off guard — it crops images differently on mobile versus desktop. The algorithm picks a focal point, and it doesn't always pick the one you'd choose.
- Single image tweet: 1600 × 900 px (16:9 — displays fully, no crop)
- Two images: 700 × 800 px each
- Profile picture: 400 × 400 px (circle)
- Header banner: 1500 × 500 px
- Card image (shared link): 1200 × 628 px
Keep anything important — faces, text, logos — in the center 60% of the frame. The edges are sacrificial territory on mobile.
LinkedIn image dimensions
What is the best image size for a LinkedIn post? LinkedIn actually plays nice with your uploads. It doesn't compress as harshly as other platforms, and images tend to display close to their original quality.
- Feed post (landscape): 1200 × 627 px
- Feed post (square): 1080 × 1080 px
- Article cover: 1280 × 720 px
- Profile picture: 400 × 400 px
- Company page cover: 1128 × 191 px
- Personal banner: 1584 × 396 px
- Carousel (PDF upload): 1080 × 1080 or 1080 × 1350 px
LinkedIn carousels are quietly one of the highest-engagement formats on the platform right now. You upload them as PDFs, and the 1080 × 1350 portrait size gives you maximum real estate on mobile feeds. Worth experimenting with if you haven't already.
TikTok
TikTok is video-first, but images still matter — especially with photo carousel posts gaining traction.
- Video / photo post: 1080 × 1920 px (9:16)
- Profile picture: 200 × 200 px
- Photo carousel: 1080 × 1920 px per image
Don't upload horizontal images to TikTok. They'll get letterboxed with black bars above and below, and it looks terrible. Stick to full vertical 9:16.
YouTube
- Thumbnail: 1280 × 720 px (16:9) — arguably the most valuable single image on the entire platform
- Channel banner: 2560 × 1440 px (safe area for all devices: center 1546 × 423 px)
- Profile picture: 800 × 800 px
YouTube thumbnails need to work at postage-stamp size. Three to five words of large text, high-contrast colors, and an expressive face if you've got one. If it doesn't pop at 160 × 90 pixels, go back to the drawing board.
Pinterest rewards vertical images. Wide images just don't perform here.
- Standard pin: 1000 × 1500 px (2:3 — the sweet spot)
- Long pin: 1000 × 2100 px (max recommended)
- Square pin: 1000 × 1000 px
- Profile picture: 280 × 280 px
Pins taller than 2:3 get truncated in the feed, forcing users to tap to see the rest. Most won't. Stick to 2:3 for full visibility.
Quick reference table
| Platform | Best feed size | Stories/Reels | Profile pic | |----------|---------------|---------------|-------------| | Instagram | 1080 × 1350 | 1080 × 1920 | 320 × 320 | | Facebook | 1200 × 630 | 1080 × 1920 | 176 × 176 | | X/Twitter | 1600 × 900 | — | 400 × 400 | | LinkedIn | 1200 × 627 | — | 400 × 400 | | TikTok | 1080 × 1920 | 1080 × 1920 | 200 × 200 | | YouTube | 1280 × 720 | — | 800 × 800 | | Pinterest | 1000 × 1500 | — | 280 × 280 |
Do platforms compress your images?
Yes. Every single one. Instagram and Facebook are the worst offenders, but none of them leave your files untouched. To minimize quality loss, upload at the exact recommended pixel dimensions and save as JPEG at 85% quality or higher. For graphics with text or sharp edges, PNG holds up better — though Facebook will convert it to JPEG anyway.
Starting with the right dimensions is half the battle. The other half is not having to open Photoshop every single time.
How to resize images without Photoshop
You don't need heavyweight software for this. A browser tool gets it done in seconds:
- Social Media Image Resizer — presets for every platform mentioned above. Pick the network, drop your image, export.
- Resize Image — custom dimensions with aspect ratio lock when you need a specific size.
- Crop Image — crop to exact ratios like 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, or 2:3.
- Bulk Resize Image — batch-process a whole folder of images when you're prepping content for the week.
I keep the image resizer bookmarked. It's faster than remembering a table of numbers, and everything runs in your browser — no uploads to a server, no waiting.
Get your dimensions right once, and you'll never have to squint at a blurry, half-cropped post again. Bookmark this page — I'll update it whenever platforms change their specs.