The Right Image Size for Every Social Media Platform
There are dozens of published image sizes across the platforms and only a handful of actual shapes. Learn the shapes and the numbers stop mattering. The Social Media Image Resizer holds the exact dimensions for each one so you choose a destination rather than looking up pixels.
The shapes that matter
Square, one to one. The safe default for a feed post almost everywhere. Nothing is cropped, nothing is wasted.
Portrait, four by five. The tallest shape a feed will show without cropping, which makes it the most screen a single post can occupy. Worth using when the image is the point.
Vertical, nine by sixteen. Full-screen stories, reels and shorts. The top and bottom are covered by interface - profile name, captions, buttons - so keep the subject in the middle sixty per cent.
Landscape, sixteen by nine. Video thumbnails, link previews and page headers. This is the shape that link previews use, so an image that will be shared as a link wants to exist in this ratio.
The crop you cannot see coming
A platform shows one shape in the feed and a different one when the post is opened. A tall image is often cropped to square in the grid, so a portrait with the face near the top can appear headless until someone taps it.
The way out is to compose for the tightest crop and let the rest be bonus. Keep the subject centred and away from the edges, and whatever the feed does the picture still works. For a picture that must survive several shapes, a square original with generous margins is the most forgiving thing you can make.
Resolution and file size
Platforms re-compress everything you upload, so sending an enormous file achieves nothing except a slow upload. Match the published dimensions, or roughly double them for a crisper result on high-density screens, and compress before uploading with the Bulk Image Compressor. An image that is already a reasonable size survives the platform's own compression better than one it has to shrink drastically.
Common questions
What size works everywhere if I only make one?
1080 by 1080, square. It posts cleanly to every feed and crops predictably.
Why does my image look soft after uploading?
The platform re-compressed it. Uploading at the right dimensions rather than much larger reduces how much work it has to do.
Do these sizes change?
The published numbers shift occasionally; the underlying ratios have been stable for years. Work in ratios and you will rarely be caught out.
Should I add a border to fit a square?
Only deliberately. Bars of colour around a photo read as a mistake unless they are clearly part of a style - though a thin frame from the Image Border Adder can look intentional.
What about the profile picture?
Different problem, same principle. Platforms display it as a circle and crop the corners of your square away, so frame tighter than feels natural and keep the face well inside the middle.
Need an image at the right size for a platform?