The Best Image Sizes for Every Social Platform (2026)

Every platform wants a slightly different rectangle, and getting it wrong means a blurry upload, an awkward crop, or a face that's been chopped in half by a banner's "safe zone." This is the 2026 cheat sheet: the exact pixel dimensions worth memorising, and a fast way to hit them.

A note on where these numbers come from: platforms move their goalposts quietly and their official help pages often lag the actual rendering behaviour. The dimensions below are the ones we maintain across our per-platform spec pages. Each one gets re-checked against what the platform currently renders, not what its documentation said two years ago. When a platform shifts, the dedicated pages update first.

Rather than remember all of these, you can paste any of the numbers below straight into the image resizer and export in seconds.

Instagram

Instagram is the most format-hungry platform, so start here.

• Square post: 1080 × 1080 (1:1)
• Portrait post: 1080 × 1350 (4:5). Takes up the most feed real estate
• Story & Reel: 1080 × 1920 (9:16)
• Profile photo: 320 × 320 (displayed as a circle, so keep faces centred)

Instagram compresses uploads hard. Sending a clean 1080-wide image looks far better than uploading a 4000px original and letting the app crush it. Every Instagram surface is also covered in the image size cheat sheet.

YouTube

• Thumbnail: 1280 × 720 (16:9), the single most important image on the platform
• Channel banner: 2560 × 1440, but the "safe area" that shows on every device is only the central 1546 × 423
• Video (upload): 1920 × 1080 for standard 1080p

Keep your thumbnail's key text inside the middle of the frame. The bottom-right corner is covered by the duration stamp. Banner safe zones are mapped in detail on the YouTube banner page.

Facebook

• Shared post image: 1200 × 630 (also the ideal link-preview size)
• Cover photo: 820 × 312 on desktop, cropped narrower on mobile
• Profile photo: 170 × 170

More: resize an image for Facebook.

X (Twitter)

• In-stream image: 1600 × 900 (16:9) displays cleanly without cropping
• Header: 1500 × 500 (3:1)
• Profile photo: 400 × 400

More: resize an image for X.

LinkedIn

• Shared post image: 1200 × 627
• Personal cover: 1584 × 396
• Company logo: 300 × 300

More: resize an image for LinkedIn.

TikTok & Pinterest

• TikTok video / cover: 1080 × 1920 (9:16), same as a Reel, see TikTok specs
• Pinterest standard pin: 1000 × 1500 (2:3), tall pins win more space. See Pinterest specs

A few rules that beat any chart

1. Match the aspect ratio first, pixels second. If the ratio is right, the platform's downscale is graceful. If it's wrong, you get letterboxing or a bad crop.
2. Design bigger, export to spec. Work at 2× the target and resize down at the end for the sharpest result.
3. Mind the safe zones. Banners and covers crop differently on mobile and desktop: keep text and faces near the centre.
4. Export at the right pixel size, not a giant original. A correctly sized 1080px image usually looks better after the platform's compression than an oversized one.

The fastest workflow

Pick the platform, grab the numbers above, and drop your image into the image resizer. Type the width and height (or hit a preset), let the aspect-ratio lock keep things proportional, and download. It all happens in your browser. No upload, no waiting, no watermark. If the platform then complains about file size rather than dimensions, the compress-to-exact-size tool gets you under any limit.

Bookmark this page, or the always-current image size cheat sheet, and stop guessing rectangles. The platforms tweak their layouts every year. These dimensions are the ones that consistently render well going into 2026.

Sources

• Image file type and format guide (MDN Web Docs)