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The right image size for every social platform

5 min read Editing Updated July 2026

Every platform resizes and recompresses what you upload, and each one does it differently. Upload something at the wrong dimensions and it gets cropped in a way you did not choose; upload it at the wrong quality and the platform's own compression makes it worse than it needed to be.

This guide covers the sizes that matter, the aspect ratios behind them, and — more usefully — the general rules that stay true when the numbers change.

Think in aspect ratios, not pixels

Platforms revise their pixel dimensions constantly, but the aspect ratios have been remarkably stable for years, because they are tied to how phones are held rather than to any platform decision.

There are really only five that matter. 1:1 square, the old Instagram default, still the safest universal format. 4:5 vertical, which is the tallest ratio most feeds will display without cropping and therefore occupies the most screen space in a scroll. 9:16 full vertical, for stories, reels and TikTok. 16:9 horizontal, for YouTube, X and most link previews. And 2:3 tall, which is Pinterest's preference.

If you compose with the ratio in mind and export at a sensible resolution, the specific pixel count almost never matters — every platform downscales to its own targets anyway.

Current dimensions worth knowing

As of mid-2026, these are the sizes that give the best results:

  • Instagram feed: 1080 × 1350 (4:5) for maximum feed space, or 1080 × 1080 (1:1) for the safe square.
  • Instagram stories and reels: 1080 × 1920 (9:16), keeping text away from the top and bottom 250 pixels where the interface sits.
  • TikTok: 1080 × 1920 (9:16), same interface caveat.
  • X (Twitter) in-feed image: 1600 × 900 (16:9). The feed preview crops toward the centre, so keep the subject there.
  • LinkedIn post image: 1200 × 627 (roughly 1.91:1) for link previews, 1080 × 1080 for standalone images.
  • Facebook feed: 1200 × 630 (1.91:1) for links, 1080 × 1350 for photos.
  • YouTube thumbnail: 1280 × 720 (16:9), under 2 MB. Legible at roughly 210 pixels wide, which is how most people see it.
  • Pinterest: 1000 × 1500 (2:3). Taller pins are shown but get truncated in the grid.

The YouTube thumbnail rule everyone ignores

The specification says 1280 × 720. The actual display size in a sidebar or a mobile feed is around 210 pixels wide — about a sixth of that.

This means a thumbnail designed at full size and judged at full size is being judged at six times the size anyone will see it. Detailed compositions, small text and subtle expressions all disappear. The thumbnails that work are the ones that survive being shrunk: one clear subject, very large text if any, and strong tonal contrast between the subject and the background.

The practical test is to shrink your thumbnail to 210 pixels wide and look at it. If you cannot tell what it is, neither can anyone else, regardless of how good it looks at full size.

Why your uploads look worse than the file you made

Every platform recompresses. They are serving billions of images and bandwidth is a real cost, so your carefully exported file is decoded, resized to their targets, and re-encoded with their settings.

This is a second lossy pass on top of yours, which is the mechanism behind most 'why does my image look bad on Instagram' complaints. There are a few things that genuinely reduce the damage:

  • Upload at the platform's target dimensions or a clean multiple of them, so their resize is a simple downscale rather than an awkward resample.
  • Export at high quality (90+) rather than pre-compressing. Their encoder does better starting from a clean image than from one that already has artefacts.
  • Avoid fine detail, dense texture and thin lines, which are exactly what a second compression pass destroys.
  • Prefer PNG for text-heavy graphics where the platform accepts it, since text is the worst case for lossy compression.
  • Do not upload an image that has already been downloaded from another platform — that is a third compression generation and it shows.

Safe zones

Vertical formats overlay interface elements on your image, and the areas they cover are not obvious when you are designing.

For stories and reels, keep anything important out of the top 250 pixels, where the profile row and progress bars sit, and the bottom 250 pixels, where captions, the reply field and the action buttons appear. On TikTok, also avoid the right-hand strip where the action column lives.

For profile pictures, remember they are cropped to a circle on essentially every platform now. Design in a square and check that nothing important falls into the corners.

For link previews, the crop is horizontal and centre-weighted almost everywhere, so a subject at the edge of a tall image will simply be cut off.

Perguntas frequentes

What is the best image size for Instagram?
1080 × 1350 (4:5) for feed posts — the tallest ratio Instagram displays without cropping, so it takes up the most screen space as people scroll. Use 1080 × 1920 (9:16) for stories and reels.
Why does Instagram make my photos look bad?
It recompresses everything you upload. Uploading at the target dimensions and at high quality (90+) reduces the damage, because their encoder produces a better result starting from a clean image than from one that is already compressed.
What size should a YouTube thumbnail be?
1280 × 720 pixels, under 2 MB. More importantly, design it to be legible at around 210 pixels wide, which is the size most viewers actually see in feeds and sidebars.
Should I upload PNG or JPG to social media?
JPG or WebP for photographs — the platform will recompress anyway. PNG is worth it for graphics with text or flat colour, where lossy artefacts are most visible, if the platform accepts it.

Tools mentioned in this guide

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