Image Sizes for Social Media and the Web in 2026: The Reference Table

The safest image sizes in 2026 are 1080 by 1080 pixels for square posts, 1080 by 1350 for portrait feed posts, 1080 by 1920 for Stories, Reels and Shorts, 1280 by 720 for YouTube thumbnails, and 1200 by 630 for the Open Graph image that appears when a link is shared. Get the aspect ratio right and keep the important content away from the edges, and every platform will handle the rest. The table below has the full list.

Three rules that cover every platform

Platforms change their specifications often, and exact numbers in any guide age quickly. Three principles do not age, and they explain most of the figures that follow.

Ratio beats resolution. Every platform resizes what you upload; none of them will reshape it for you. If you upload a 16:9 photo where a 4:5 portrait is expected, the platform crops the sides or letterboxes it. Match the ratio first and the pixel count is a secondary concern.

Upload more pixels than the display needs, within reason. Phones have high-density screens that draw two or three device pixels for every layout pixel. A 1080-pixel-wide upload looks crisp on a phone even though the layout is only around 400 points wide. Uploading 4000 pixels wide gains nothing, because the platform will shrink it to its own ceiling anyway, usually 1080 or 1440 pixels, and re-compress it.

Respect the safe zone. Vertical formats overlay a profile name at the top and captions, buttons and a progress bar at the bottom. Cover images are cropped differently on phone and desktop. Anything you care about belongs in the middle of the frame.

The reference table

These figures are correct at the time of writing. Where a platform publishes a recommended size and a minimum, the recommended size is shown. Sizes are width by height in pixels.

Platform and placement	Size (px)	Ratio	Notes
Instagram square post	1080 x 1080	1:1	Shown slightly cropped in the profile grid
Instagram portrait post	1080 x 1350	4:5	Largest feed footprint; grid crops to 3:4
Instagram landscape post	1080 x 566	1.91:1	Smallest in the feed; avoid for key content
Instagram Stories and Reels	1080 x 1920	9:16	Keep text out of the top and bottom 250 px
Instagram profile photo	320 x 320 minimum	1:1	Displayed as a circle; upload 1000 x 1000
Facebook feed photo	1080 x 1350 or 1080 x 1080	4:5 or 1:1	Link previews use 1200 x 630 instead
Facebook page cover	1640 x 624	2.63:1	Phones crop the sides; desktop crops top and bottom
Facebook profile photo	720 x 720	1:1	Displayed at 170 px on desktop, 128 px on phones
X single image	1600 x 900	16:9	Up to 5 MB; 1200 x 675 also fine
X header	1500 x 500	3:1	Profile photo overlaps the bottom left
X profile photo	400 x 400	1:1	Displayed as a circle
LinkedIn post image	1200 x 627 or 1080 x 1080	1.91:1 or 1:1	Square and 4:5 take more feed space
LinkedIn profile photo	400 x 400 minimum	1:1	Upload 1000 x 1000 for sharpness
LinkedIn personal banner	1584 x 396	4:1	Profile photo covers the lower left on desktop
LinkedIn company cover	1128 x 191	5.9:1	Very short; keep it simple
YouTube thumbnail	1280 x 720	16:9	Under 2 MB; duration badge covers the bottom right
YouTube channel banner	2560 x 1440	16:9	Only the central 1546 x 423 shows on every device
YouTube Shorts and TikTok	1080 x 1920	9:16	Same safe-zone rules as Reels
Pinterest standard pin	1000 x 1500	2:3	Taller pins get cut off in the feed
Open Graph (link preview)	1200 x 630	1.91:1	Minimum 600 x 315; keep under 1 MB
Favicon	32 x 32 ICO plus 180 x 180 and 512 x 512 PNG	1:1	Add an SVG for modern browsers
Website hero image	1920 x 1080 to 2560 x 1440	16:9 or wider	Under 250 KB after compression

Instagram: feed, Stories and Reels

Instagram uploads are limited to 1080 pixels wide; anything larger is scaled down. The feed shows three shapes. A square post at 1080 by 1080 is the classic choice. A portrait post at 1080 by 1350 takes up the most screen in the feed, which is why most brands use it. A landscape post at 1080 by 566 is the smallest and is best avoided for anything that needs attention.

Since early 2025 the profile grid has displayed thumbnails at 3:4 rather than square, and Instagram now accepts 3:4 uploads at 1080 by 1440. A 4:5 post loses a sliver at the top and bottom in the grid, and a square post loses more from the sides. Keep the subject centred and this rarely matters, but if your grid is your shop window, consider composing at 3:4.

Stories and Reels share the 1080 by 1920 vertical format. The interface covers roughly the top 250 pixels with the profile name and progress bar, and Reels cover an even larger area at the bottom with the caption, audio label and action buttons. A good working rule is to keep faces, text and logos inside the central 1080 by 1420 area, and anything that must be read inside the middle 1080 by 1200.

The Image Cropper does that first step. Choose a shape (square, 4:5, 3:4, 9:16, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 or the 1.91:1 link-preview shape), choose which part to keep (centre, top, bottom, left or right), and it cuts the largest area of that shape from the original at full resolution. For the 4000 by 3000 photo above, 4:5 gives exactly the 2400 by 3000 slice. You can also zoom in, or switch to exact pixels and give the left edge, top edge, width and height yourself.

Facebook and LinkedIn

Facebook feed photos follow the same shapes as Instagram, with 1080 by 1350 and 1080 by 1080 as the dependable choices. Link previews are different: when you paste a URL, Facebook pulls the Open Graph image from the page, and that image should be 1200 by 630. Facebook recompresses everything, often aggressively, so upload a clean, lightly compressed file and let the platform do the rest.

Page covers are the awkward one. The desktop view shows the cover at roughly 820 by 312, while phones show a taller, narrower slice at around 640 by 360. Upload 1640 by 624 and keep logos and text within the middle 1200 pixels horizontally and away from the top and bottom 60 pixels. A plain background with a centred subject survives both crops.

LinkedIn's personal banner is a very wide 1584 by 396 strip. On desktop your round profile photo sits over the lower left corner, so keep text to the right half or the top. Post images work at 1200 by 627 for link-style shares, but a square or 4:5 image gets more vertical space in the feed, exactly as on Instagram. Profile photos should be uploaded at 1000 by 1000 even though the minimum is 400, because the full-size view opens the original.

X, YouTube and Pinterest

X displays a single image in the timeline at its own aspect ratio within sensible limits, so 16:9 at 1600 by 900 is the standard and 4:5 portrait also works. Posts with two or more images are cropped into a grid, so keep subjects centred. Image uploads are capped at 5 MB at the time of writing. The header is 1500 by 500, and the profile photo overlaps its bottom left corner on both desktop and phone.

YouTube thumbnails are 1280 by 720, under 2 MB, as JPG or PNG. They are shown at anything from 168 pixels wide on a phone to full width on a television, so text must be enormous: three to five words, filling at least a third of the frame. The video duration badge sits in the bottom right corner and the watched-progress bar runs along the bottom edge; keep those clear. The channel banner is 2560 by 1440 but only the central 1546 by 423 is guaranteed to show on every device; phones show little more than that strip.

Pinterest wants tall pins at 2:3, with 1000 by 1500 as the recommended size. Pins taller than 2:3 are truncated in the feed, which cuts off the bottom, so put titles in the top two thirds. Pinterest is one of the few platforms where a larger pixel count helps, because pins are often opened at full size.

Open Graph images, favicons and link previews

The Open Graph image is the picture that appears when your page is shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage and most other places that unfurl links. The one size that works everywhere is 1200 by 630 pixels, a 1.91:1 ratio. Smaller images down to 600 by 315 still show, but some platforms switch to a small square thumbnail below that, and square or portrait images get cropped unpredictably.

File size matters more here than people expect. Facebook accepts up to 8 MB, but WhatsApp skips preview images larger than about 300 KB at the time of writing, and X limits card images to 5 MB. Aim for under 200 KB. A 1200 by 630 JPEG at quality 80 is usually 80 to 150 KB; the Image Compressor will get a heavier export there without visible loss. Put the title in the image if you can, because many platforms show it small and the text below is easy to ignore. Once the image is on your server, the Meta Tag Generator builds the Open Graph and X card tags that point to it from a title, description, page address and the full https address of the image, and warns when the title or description runs long.

Favicons are the smallest images on your site and have the longest list of sizes. Modern browsers want a 32 by 32 ICO (which can also carry 16 by 16 and 48 by 48 variants), an SVG for tabs and dark mode, a 180 by 180 PNG for iOS home screens and 192 by 192 plus 512 by 512 PNGs for Android and the web manifest. The Favicon Generator produces every size and the matching HTML tags from one square logo of at least 512 pixels.

Hero images and the retina 2x rule

On your own website you control the display size, so the question becomes: how many pixels do I need to upload for the image to look sharp? The answer is twice the CSS width at which it will be displayed, because high-density screens on phones and most laptops use two device pixels per CSS pixel. This is the 2x rule.

Full-width hero images are the exception. A 1920 CSS pixel desktop at 2x would want a 3840-pixel image, which is enormous. In practice almost everyone caps hero images at 1920 to 2560 pixels wide, accepts a barely perceptible softness on large 2x monitors, and spends the bytes on a faster page instead. Heroes also need separate crops for phones: a 16:9 desktop hero becomes a thin strip on a portrait phone, so prepare a 4:5 or 1:1 version and serve it with a media query or the picture element.

The Image Resizer handles both jobs: set an exact width such as 1600 to apply the 2x rule, or a percentage when you want to scale a batch down evenly. It runs in your browser, so large originals never need to be uploaded anywhere.

File-size targets and a quick workflow

Pixel dimensions set how sharp an image can be; file size sets how fast it loads and whether a platform accepts it at all. These targets give a comfortable margin under every limit at the time of writing.

Use	Platform limit	Practical target
Instagram and Facebook posts	Large, but recompressed heavily	Under 1 MB, JPEG quality 85
X images	5 MB	Under 1 MB
LinkedIn images	8 MB	Under 1 MB
YouTube thumbnail	2 MB	Under 500 KB
Pinterest pin	20 MB	Under 2 MB
Open Graph image	300 KB for WhatsApp previews	Under 200 KB
Website hero image	None, but it is the largest asset on the page	Under 250 KB
Website content image	None	Under 100 KB
Favicon ICO	None	Under 20 KB

A workflow that reaches these targets every time: export from your editor at the largest size you will need, with no sharpening and light compression. Crop to the target ratio. Resize to the exact pixel size from the reference table, or to 2x the display width for your own site. Compress as JPEG or WebP at quality 80 to 85, or PNG for flat graphics with text. Check the result at 100 per cent zoom, then upload. For platforms that recompress, a clean 1 MB upload produces a better result than a 200 KB upload, because the platform's own encoder has more to work with.

Where to go next. Crop to the right shape first, then scale to any size in the table with the Image Resizer, bring the file under its target with the Image Compressor, and build every favicon size at once with the Favicon Generator. All three run in your browser and nothing is uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best image size for Instagram in 2026?

For feed posts, 1080 by 1350 pixels (a 4:5 portrait) gives the most screen space and is the choice most brands use. Square posts at 1080 by 1080 remain fine, and Instagram now also accepts 3:4 posts at 1080 by 1440 to match the profile grid. Stories and Reels use 1080 by 1920. Instagram scales anything wider than 1080 pixels down, so uploading larger files gains nothing.

What size should an Open Graph image be?

Use 1200 by 630 pixels, a 1.91:1 ratio, and keep the file under 200 KB. That size displays correctly on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, iMessage and WhatsApp. The minimum that still shows a large preview is 600 by 315. Keep text and logos away from the edges, because some apps crop the preview to a square or round the corners, and put the title in the image because the caption below is often tiny.

What is the correct YouTube thumbnail size?

YouTube thumbnails should be 1280 by 720 pixels, a 16:9 ratio, saved as JPG or PNG under 2 MB. The minimum width is 640 pixels. Because thumbnails are shown as small as 168 pixels wide on phones, use very large text of three to five words and a single clear subject. Keep the bottom right corner clear, since the video duration badge is drawn there.

Why do my images look blurry on phones but sharp on my laptop?

Most phones and many laptops have high-density screens that draw two or three device pixels for every CSS pixel. An image exported at exactly its display width is stretched across twice as many physical pixels and looks soft. Export at twice the display width, so a 700-pixel-wide image on the page should be 1400 pixels in the file. For full-width hero images, 1920 to 2560 pixels is a sensible compromise.

How big should a website hero image be?

Export a desktop hero at 1920 to 2560 pixels wide in a 16:9 or wider ratio, and compress it to under 250 KB as JPEG or WebP. A separate 4:5 or square crop for phones avoids serving a thin strip of the photo on portrait screens. Hero images are usually the heaviest asset on a page, so compressing them to quality 70 to 80 is worth the small loss of detail.

Does uploading a larger image give better quality on social media?

Only up to the platform ceiling, which is usually 1080 pixels wide for Instagram and Facebook and around 1600 to 2048 for X and LinkedIn. Beyond that the platform scales the image down and re-encodes it, so extra pixels are wasted. What does help is uploading a clean, lightly compressed file at the recommended size, because the platform re-compresses whatever you give it and a good source produces a better result.