Social Media Image Sizes 2026: the complete cheat sheet

You design the perfect post, hit publish — and the platform crops your subject's head off or stretches the logo until it hurts to look at. The cause is almost always the same: wrong dimensions. This is your updated reference for social media image sizes in 2026 — from Instagram feed posts to LinkedIn covers and YouTube thumbnails — organized platform by platform so you can come back to it every time you start a new design. Bookmark it; we review and update it every year as the platforms change.

Why social media image sizes keep changing

Platforms tweak their layouts and formats constantly: a new placement here, an adjusted ratio there, UI buttons creeping into space that was safe last year. The size you memorized two years ago may be exactly why your designs crop strangely today. That's why we treat this page as a living reference — the numbers below are current for 2026.

Instagram image sizes

The most crop-sensitive platform of them all — its auto-crop shows no mercy:

• Square feed post: 1080×1080 px (1:1) — the classic safe choice.
• Portrait feed post: 1080×1350 px (4:5) — takes up more of the screen while people scroll, which is why most creators default to it now.
• Stories and Reels: 1080×1920 px (9:16) — full-screen vertical.
• Carousels: same sizes as regular feed posts — 1080×1080 square or 1080×1350 portrait — but keep one size for every slide in a single carousel.

Facebook image sizes

• Shared image in posts and links: 1200×630 px — the same size that shows when someone shares a link to your site.
• Cover photo: 820×312 px — and remember it gets cropped on mobile, so keep the important elements centered.
• Stories: 1080×1920 px (9:16).

TikTok sizes

• Video: 1080×1920 px (9:16) — TikTok is fully vertical; horizontal video shows up small and surrounded by empty space.
• Profile photo: 200×200 px.

LinkedIn image sizes

The platform whose sizes get neglected most — even though a stretched cover is the first professional impression you make:

• Shared image or link: 1200×627 px.
• Personal profile cover: 1584×396 px.
• Company page cover: 1128×191 px — a very narrow strip, so avoid small text entirely.

YouTube image sizes

• Thumbnail: 1280×720 px (16:9) — the single most important image on the whole platform; it decides the click.
• Channel banner: 2048×1152 px safe area — YouTube displays the banner at radically different sizes on TV, desktop, and mobile, so keep your logo and text inside this central zone.
• Shorts: 1080×1920 px (9:16).

X (Twitter) image sizes

• In-stream image: 1600×900 px.
• Header: 1500×500 px.
• Profile photo: 400×400 px — displayed as a circle, so keep nothing important in the corners.

Safe zones for Stories and Reels

Getting 1080×1920 right isn't enough on its own, because the platform's own UI covers parts of your design:

• Top: the account name and close button overlay the top strip — leave roughly 250 px at the top free of important text.
• Bottom: the reply field, action buttons, and caption overlay the bottom strip — leave a similar margin there.
• Rule of thumb: put everything that must be readable in the middle two-thirds of the frame, and use the edges for backgrounds and color only.

Aspect ratio matters more than exact pixels

If you remember one thing from this cheat sheet, make it this: platforms compress and rescale your images anyway, so the aspect ratio (1:1, 4:5, 9:16, 16:9) decides how the result looks — not the exact pixel count.

• A 2160×2160 image displays exactly like a 1080×1080 one — both are 1:1.
• But a 1080×1080 image published into a 4:5 placement gets cropped or letterboxed, no matter how sharp it is.
• The rule: match the ratio first, then supply the highest resolution you have within that ratio. Extra resolution compresses safely; the wrong ratio crops mercilessly.

Resize once, download every size — for free

Knowing the sizes is the easy part. Producing them is the grind: one photo needs a square version for the Instagram feed, a vertical one for Stories, a wide one for X and LinkedIn — the same asset, exported four times.

That's exactly what our free social media image resizer is for: upload once, download every size — free, runs entirely in your browser, and your image never leaves your device. No account, no watermark.

Social media image sizes checklist before you publish

Thirty seconds of checking saves you a re-post:

1. Does the aspect ratio match the target placement exactly — not just "close enough"?
2. Are text, faces, and logos inside the safe zone, away from UI strips and corners?
3. Did you preview on a real phone screen, not just your monitor?
4. If it's a carousel: is every slide the same size?
5. Did you prepare the other-size versions for the platforms you'll cross-post to?

Wrap-up

Image sizes are a small detail with outsized impact: a design with the right ratio and safe margins looks professional on every screen, while the wrong size gets cropped and distorted no matter how good the idea was. Come back to this guide with every new design — we update it yearly whenever the platforms change their specs.

Want to stop managing sizes by hand entirely? Try the free image resizer for quick exports, or start free with Octonity to design once and publish across all six channels. And while you're in the free-tools mood, our giveaway winner picker is there for your next contest — plus, if you're comparing platforms, our honest ManyChat comparison covers the automation side of the stack.