Social media image sizes, and why platforms crop
The dimensions are the easy part. What actually ruins posts is knowing where each platform crops, what its own interface covers, and which region survives every view.
Ahmed Kobbi · · 5 min read
Why does a correctly sized image still get cropped?
Almost every guide gives you a list of pixel dimensions and stops. That is the least useful half of the information, because a correctly sized image still gets cropped, covered and re-encoded on its way to a viewer. Three things happen. First, platforms display the same image in several places with different shapes — a feed, a profile grid, a search result, a notification — and take a different crop for each. Second, they draw their own interface on top: usernames, captions, action buttons, duration badges. Third, they re-encode, usually as JPEG, which is why fine text and flat colour can look worse after upload than before. The useful question is not 'what size should this be' but 'which region of this image survives every place it will appear'. That is what the per-platform notes below cover.
The dimensions, current as of 2026
Instagram: square feed post 1080×1080, portrait 1080×1350, landscape 1080×566, Stories and Reels 1080×1920. The profile grid has been 3:4 vertical since January 2025, which crops the sides of square posts. YouTube: video thumbnail 1280×720 with a 2 MB file limit, channel banner 2560×1440 with a 1546×423 safe area. LinkedIn: personal profile banner 1584×396, feed post and link preview 1200×627, company page cover 4200×700. X: profile header 1500×500, single in-feed image 1600×900. Facebook: cover photo 851×315, feed post and link preview 1200×630. Pinterest: standard Pin 1000×1500 at a 2:3 ratio, which is the tallest the feed displays without truncating. TikTok: video and cover 1080×1920. One image at 1200×630 doubles as the Open Graph image read by Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack and Discord, so a single export covers every link preview.
Where each platform crops and covers
Instagram square posts display fully in the feed and lose roughly 12 percent from each side in the 3:4 profile grid. Portrait 4:5 posts lose only about 7 percent of height in the grid, which makes portrait the safer choice for anything with edge content. Instagram Stories and Reels lose the top and bottom 250 pixels to interface chrome, leaving a usable band of about 1080×1420. Phones taller than 16:9 trim the frame further before any UI is drawn. YouTube thumbnails carry the duration badge over the bottom-right corner and a progress bar along the bottom edge. Banners are cropped hardest on mobile, where only the central 1546×423 is visible. LinkedIn and X headers are both partly covered by the profile photo — lower-left on desktop for both, moving toward the centre on mobile. The right portion is the only reliably clear region. TikTok covers show full 9:16 in the feed but are centre-cropped to roughly square on the profile grid, so the safe region is about the central 880×880 once the right-hand action rail and bottom caption are accounted for. Facebook covers are 851×315 on desktop and a narrower centre crop of about 640×360 on mobile.
Compression, colour and text size
Every platform re-encodes uploads as JPEG. That is why thin type, flat colour fields and sharp edges often look worse after posting than in your editor — JPEG handles photographic detail well and hard edges badly. The practical responses are to use medium or bold weights rather than light ones, to set type larger than feels necessary, and to keep contrast high. On a YouTube thumbnail, any word you need read should be at least a tenth of the frame height, because thumbnails are routinely displayed at 320 pixels wide in a sidebar — a quarter of the size you designed at. Colour management catches people out too. Platforms assume sRGB. An image exported in Adobe RGB or Display P3 will have its saturated tones converted on upload, and reds and cyans shift visibly. Export sRGB and what you see locally is what appears in the feed. Uploading larger than the target size does not help. Instagram caps feed width at 1080 and YouTube stores thumbnails at 1280×720 regardless, so oversized uploads add a server-side downscale on top of the compression — two lossy steps instead of one.
A workflow that produces every size from one master
Shoot or design once at high resolution, then generate each delivery size from that master in a single step. Repeatedly resizing an already-resized file compounds loss. Work in this order: crop to the target aspect ratio first, then resize to the exact pixel dimensions, then compress if the file needs to be smaller. Cropping before resizing avoids processing pixels you are about to discard, and compressing last means artefacts are not amplified by subsequent operations. Composition-wise, build for the tightest crop your image will face. If a photograph is going to Instagram feed and profile grid, keep the subject in the central 80 percent. If a cover is going to a TikTok profile grid, keep the title inside the central square. The resize presets on this site handle the pixel dimensions for each platform, and each preset page documents where that specific platform crops and what its interface covers — which is the part that actually determines whether the post looks right.
Tools mentioned in this guide
Frequently asked questions
What size should an Instagram post be?
- 1080×1080 for square, 1080×1350 for portrait. Portrait occupies about 25% more screen and survives the 3:4 profile grid better, losing roughly 7% of height rather than a quarter of the width.
Why does my image look blurry after uploading?
- Usually one of two things: you uploaded larger than the platform stores, adding a server-side downscale on top of its compression, or you exported at display size rather than double it for high-density screens.
What size is a YouTube thumbnail?
- 1280×720 at 16:9, under 2 MB. Keep the bottom-right corner clear of text — the duration badge sits there.
Is there one image size that works everywhere?
- 1200×630 covers link previews across Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack and Discord, because they all read the same Open Graph image tag.
Why do my colours change after posting?
- Platforms assume sRGB. Images exported in Adobe RGB or Display P3 get converted on upload, which shifts saturated reds and cyans. Export sRGB.
Should I upload the highest resolution I have?
- No. Platforms cap what they store — Instagram at 1080 wide, YouTube thumbnails at 1280×720 — so uploading larger just adds an extra lossy downscale.
How large should text be on a thumbnail?
- At least a tenth of the frame height. Thumbnails are frequently displayed around 320 pixels wide, where smaller type becomes unreadable.
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Written by Ahmed Kobbi, who builds and maintains SwiftTooly.