Instagram Image Sizes: Every Dimension You Need
Every Instagram image size in one table: feed posts, carousels, Stories, Reels, profile pictures and grid splits — with the aspect ratios that actually get used.
Instagram accepts a surprising range of dimensions and then quietly reshapes most of them. This is what to export at, and why.
The one number to remember: 1080 pixels wide. Every feed image is resized to that width no matter what you upload. Everything else on this page is about choosing the right height.
Feed posts
| Shape | Pixels | Ratio | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portrait | 1080 × 1350 | 4:5 | Default choice — the most screen space Instagram allows in the feed |
| Square | 1080 × 1080 | 1:1 | Grids, product shots, anything symmetrical |
| Landscape | 1080 × 566 | 1.91:1 | Wide scenes; takes the least screen and generally performs worst |
Portrait is the default for a simple reason: a 4:5 image occupies about 40% more vertical space in someone’s feed than a square, and screen space is attention. Unless you have a compositional reason to go square, go tall.
Anything taller than 4:5 gets cropped. A 9:16 photo posted to the feed loses its top and bottom.
Carousels
Carousels follow the same sizes as single posts, with one rule that catches people out:
Every slide is displayed at the aspect ratio of the first slide. Upload a 4:5 image first and a square second, and the square gets cropped to 4:5. Prepare every slide at identical dimensions before you start.
| Use | Pixels |
|---|---|
| Standard carousel | 1080 × 1350 (4:5) |
| Square carousel | 1080 × 1080 |
| Panorama carousel | 1080 × 1350 per slide, cut from one wide photo |
A panorama carousel is worth calling out because the source requirement is easy to get wrong: three slides at 1080 wide means the original needs to be at least 3240 × 1350 px. Our panorama maker does the cutting and tells you if the source falls short.
Stories and Reels
| Surface | Pixels | Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| Story | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 |
| Reel | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 |
| Reel cover | 1080 × 1920, safe area 1080 × 1080 centred | 9:16 |
The number that actually matters for Stories and Reels is not the canvas — it is the safe area. Interface elements sit over roughly the top 250 px and bottom 320 px. Anything important, especially text, belongs in the middle 1080 × 1350 or it will end up behind a profile bubble or a caption.
Reel covers are the fiddly one: the cover is 9:16 in the Reels tab but is cropped to a centred square on your profile grid. Design so both crops work, or accept that one of them will look off.
Profile and grid
| Element | Pixels | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Profile picture | 320 × 320 | Displayed as a circle — keep the subject centred |
| Profile grid thumbnail | 1080 × 1080 shown as a square | Cropped from the centre of a non-square post |
| One tile of a 3×3 grid | 1080 × 1080 | Nine of these, cut from one photo |
The grid thumbnail rule is the one that trips up portrait posters: a 4:5 photo appears full-height in the feed but centre-cropped to a square on your profile. Check that a square crop of every portrait post still works, or your profile fills with beheaded compositions.
Source sizes for split layouts
If you are cutting one photo across several posts, the required source is the assembled size — multiply through.
| Layout | Assembled size | Minimum source |
|---|---|---|
| 3×3 grid | 3240 × 3240 | 3240 px on the short side |
| 1×3 panorama (4:5 slides) | 3240 × 1350 | 3240 px wide |
| 2×3 grid | 3240 × 2160 | 3240 × 2160 |
| 4×3 grid | 3240 × 4320 | 3240 × 4320 |
Fall short and each piece exports below 1080, Instagram upscales it, and every tile looks soft. A modern phone camera gives you 3000–4000 px on the short side, so a 3×3 grid is usually just within reach — but a screenshot or a photo that has been through a messaging app almost never is.
The 3×3 grid maker checks this for you: it reports the exact pixel size each tile will be exported at and warns you before you post if the source cannot fill 1080.
File format and weight
| Property | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Format | JPEG |
| Quality | 85–95 |
| Colour profile | sRGB |
| Maximum file size | Under 8 MB |
| Colour depth | 8-bit |
Uploading a PNG achieves nothing: Instagram re-encodes everything to JPEG using its own settings. A PNG just means a bigger upload for the same result. The exception is graphics with hard edges and flat colour — those suffer visibly from JPEG either way, and the fix is to avoid fine text rather than to change format.
There is more on what the re-encoding actually does in does Instagram ruin photo quality.
Quick reference
- Feed, default: 1080 × 1350
- Feed, square: 1080 × 1080
- Feed, wide: 1080 × 566
- Carousel: match every slide to the first one
- Story / Reel: 1080 × 1920, keep content in the middle 1080 × 1350
- Profile picture: 320 × 320
- 3×3 grid source: 3240 px minimum on the short side
- Everything: sRGB, JPEG, quality 85–95
Two rules worth remembering over the numbers
Export at exactly 1080 px wide. The table above has a dozen dimensions, but if you only remember one thing, remember this. Instagram resizes anything wider using its own resampler, which is optimised for throughput rather than quality. Resize it yourself and that step disappears.
Design for the crop you did not choose. A portrait post gets squared on your profile. A Reel cover gets squared too. A carousel slide gets reshaped to match slide one. Almost every quality complaint about Instagram is really a composition surviving one crop and not the other.