Social media image sizes 2026 — every platform, every format

Why this list exists

Every platform tweaks its image specs once or twice a year and the cheat-sheets you find on Google are usually outdated by 12-18 months. We re-checked every dimension below against the platform's current upload guide in April 2026, and the resizer linked at the bottom of this post matches them exactly.

The actual fix for outdated cheat-sheets isn't another list — it's a tool that already knows the right size. We built that too. Open the free resize tool if you just want to crop your photo to the right dimensions and skip the rest of this article.

Skip the article

If you already know what platform you're posting to and just want to resize an image to the right dimensions, our <a href="/resize" className="text-white underline font-bold">free in-browser resizer</a> has every preset below pre-loaded. No signup, no upload — your image never leaves your device.

Instagram (2026)

Instagram supports four primary aspect ratios for in-feed posts and a single ratio for Stories and Reels. The platform re-encodes everything you upload, so the goal is to give it source material at or close to the maximum recommended dimensions — too small and it looks soft, too big and it gets compressed harder than you'd like.

•Square post — 1080×1080 (1:1). The classic Instagram crop. Best for portraits, product shots, single-subject hero images.
•Portrait post / Reel — 1080×1350 (4:5). Tallest in-feed option. Wins more vertical screen real estate as users scroll.
•Landscape post — 1080×608 (1.91:1). Mostly used for shared link previews. Doesn't dominate the feed.
•Story / Reel — 1080×1920 (9:16). Full-bleed vertical. Same dimensions as TikTok native uploads.
•Profile photo — 320×320. Displayed as a circle so keep the face/logo well within the centre square.

TikTok (2026)

TikTok is functionally a single aspect ratio platform: 9:16 vertical. Anything else gets letterboxed or cropped, which kills engagement.

•Vertical video / image post — 1080×1920 (9:16). The whole platform is built around this ratio.
•Thumbnail — 1080×1920. Same as the post itself. TikTok pulls the cover frame from the video; if you upload a still image as a post, that's also the thumbnail.
•Profile photo — 200×200. Shown as a circle, similar to Instagram.

YouTube (2026)

YouTube Shorts and YouTube Long-form behave like two different platforms with different image specs. Confusing them is the #1 cause of "why does my thumbnail look pixelated" questions on the YouTube creator forums.

•Long-form thumbnail — 1280×720 (16:9). The original YouTube thumbnail spec, still the spec for any non-Shorts upload.
•Shorts thumbnail / cover — 1080×1920 (9:16). Vertical, same as TikTok. Don't recycle a 16:9 long-form thumbnail for a Short — it'll be heavily cropped.
•Channel banner — 2560×1440. The safe-zone Google actually shows is much smaller (about 1546×423 desktop, 1235×338 mobile) — keep important content centred.

Facebook (2026)

Facebook still serves multiple aspect ratios in-feed and gives you decent latitude. The main gotcha is the cover photo, which crops differently on desktop vs mobile in ways that have caught out designers for over a decade.

•Square post — 1200×1200 (1:1). Best for in-feed clarity, mirrors Instagram square.
•Landscape link preview — 1200×630 (~1.91:1). What appears when you share a link.
•Portrait / story — 1080×1920 (9:16). Same as Instagram Stories.
•Cover photo — 820×312 desktop, but it crops to 640×360 on mobile. Keep critical content centred — anything within the central 640×312 zone is safe across both views.
•Event cover — 1920×1005 (~1.91:1). Different spec from regular cover photos.

X (formerly Twitter, 2026)

X has the most permissive image handling of any major platform, but the displayed crop is brutal — anything not in the visible safe zone gets hidden until users tap the image. This is a real engagement killer for posts where the punchline is in the corner.

•In-feed post — 1200×675 (16:9). The widely-recommended size that displays without cropping in the timeline.
•Header banner — 1500×500 (3:1). A unique aspect ratio you'll only encounter on X profile pages.
•Profile photo — 400×400. Shown as a circle.

LinkedIn (2026)

LinkedIn rewards verticality more than most platforms — a portrait post takes up substantially more screen than a square one in the feed. Article cover photos and company banners have their own distinct specs.

•Single in-feed post — 1200×627 (~1.91:1). Standard image post.
•Portrait in-feed post — 1080×1350 (4:5). Better screen real estate, particularly on mobile.
•Article cover — 1200×627. Same as in-feed post.
•Company page cover — 1584×396 (4:1). Wide and short.
•Personal profile cover — 1584×396 (4:1). Same spec as company.

Pinterest (2026)

Pinterest's content is so vertical-biased that the platform actively de-prioritises square or landscape pins. If you're posting to Pinterest and the image isn't taller than wide, you're losing distribution for free.

•Standard pin — 1000×1500 (2:3). The default Pinterest spec, still the workhorse format.
•Long pin — 1000×2100 (1:2.1). Even more vertical, used for tutorial / step-by-step pins.
•Idea pin (formerly Story) — 1080×1920 (9:16). Vertical full-bleed, similar to Instagram Stories.

Resize any image to any of these sizes — free, no upload

Pick a preset from the dropdown, drop in your image, hit download. Browser-only, no signup. <a href="/resize" className="text-white underline font-bold">Open the resize tool →</a>

What to do when you have one image and need it for five platforms

The realistic situation for most small businesses: you have one good photo (a gig shot, a plate of food, a product image) and you need to post it to Instagram + Facebook + TikTok + LinkedIn + X. Five platforms, four different aspect ratios. Resizing one image five different ways takes 5-10 minutes per post.

Two practical approaches:

•Resize manually each time. Use a free tool (like ours) to crop the source photo to each target. Quick if you're posting once or twice a week.
•Automate it. If you find yourself doing this every week (gig posts, weekly menu, class schedule), the resizing IS the bottleneck. Poster Poster generates correctly-sized versions of your design for every platform automatically from your calendar — same image, all five platforms, on schedule.

Common mistakes to avoid

Most image-sizing problems trace back to a small set of recurring mistakes. Worth checking your workflow against these:

•Reusing a 16:9 thumbnail for YouTube Shorts. Shorts are 9:16. The crop will eat your title text.
•Putting key content in the corners of an X / Twitter image. The feed crop hides anything outside the central safe zone.
•Uploading a 4000×4000 image to Instagram. Instagram caps display at 1080 wide; oversized uploads get aggressively re-encoded and often look softer than a properly-sized 1080 source.
•Forgetting Facebook covers display differently on mobile vs desktop. If your branding is exclusively on the left or right edges, half your audience won't see it.
•Skipping Pinterest's vertical bias. Square pins get half the impressions of 2:3 vertical pins, all else equal.

How we keep this list current

We re-check these specs against each platform's official upload guide every quarter. The last review was April 2026. If you find a dimension that's no longer accurate, drop a note to hello@posterposter.app — we'll verify and update.

The free resize tool presets get updated at the same time, so the tool is never out of sync with the article.

TL;DR

•Every major platform's exact 2026 image dimensions in one table.
•Most online cheat-sheets are 2-3 years out of date — TikTok and Instagram both shifted recently.
•We built a free in-browser resizer with every dimension below pre-loaded — no signup, no upload.