August 16, 2026
Social Media Image Sizes: The Exact Pixel Dimensions for Every Major Platform
Uploading a beautiful photo only to have the platform crop your face out, letterbox it into a thin strip, or compress it into a muddy thumbnail is one of the most common content frustrations. The fix is simple: export at the exact pixel dimensions the platform renders at. This page is the cheat sheet — current sizes for Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube in 2026, all in one place.
Instagram's three post aspect ratios are 1:1 (square), 4:5 (portrait, the most screen real-estate in the feed) and 1.91:1 (landscape). Stories and Reels are 9:16, full-screen vertical.
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Recommended size (px) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square post | 1:1 | 1080 × 1080 | Safe on every device; smaller feed footprint. |
| Portrait post | 4:5 | 1080 × 1350 | The recommended default — most feed real estate. |
| Landscape post | 1.91:1 | 1080 × 566 | Useful for wide photographs. |
| Story / Reel | 9:16 | 1080 × 1920 | Full-screen vertical. Leave a safe zone top and bottom. |
| Profile picture | 1:1 | 320 × 320 | Cropped to a circle, so keep the subject centered. |
X (Twitter)
X's image pipeline re-encodes whatever you upload, so the only dimension that matters is the one that survives the re-encode at full resolution. Larger uploads are downscaled to roughly 1600 px on the long edge.
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Recommended size (px) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single image post | 16:9 | 1600 × 900 | Best preview in the timeline. |
| In-feed image (multi) | 4:5 or 1:1 | 1200 × 1500 or 1200 × 1200 | Use 4:5 for tall composites. |
| Header / banner | 3:1 | 1500 × 500 | Profile photos overlap the lower-left corner. |
| Profile picture | 1:1 | 400 × 400 | Cropped to a circle. |
| Link card image | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 628 | Used when sharing a URL — make text legible at small size. |
Facebook's most-shown image placements are the link preview (the card that unfurls when you post a URL), the shared feed post, the cover photo, and the event cover.
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Recommended size (px) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared post (landscape) | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 630 | Default feed rendering for landscape images. |
| Shared post (square) | 1:1 | 1200 × 1200 | Better mobile preview than landscape. |
| Link card / OG image | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 630 | Used by every site with Open Graph meta tags. |
| Cover photo | 2.7:1 | 1640 × 624 | Mobile crops aggressively — keep subjects centered. |
| Event cover | 2:1 | 1920 × 1005 | Shown at the top of the event page. |
| Profile picture | 1:1 | 170 × 170 | Cropped to a circle. |
LinkedIn has fewer placement types than Instagram or Facebook, but the ones it has are unforgiving about cropping — text and faces near the edges often get clipped by the avatar overlay.
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Recommended size (px) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared post (landscape) | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 627 | Feed default for image posts. |
| Shared post (portrait) | 4:5 | 1080 × 1350 | Best mobile feed real estate. |
| Article / link share | 1.91:1 | 1200 × 644 | Used as the article hero image. |
| Profile banner | 4:1 | 1584 × 396 | Avatar overlaps lower-left — leave space. |
| Company page banner | 4:1 | 1128 × 191 | Logo overlaps lower-left. |
YouTube
YouTube cares about two image placements: the thumbnail on every video (the single biggest factor in click-through rate) and the channel banner.
| Placement | Aspect ratio | Recommended size (px) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Video thumbnail | 16:9 | 1280 × 720 | Minimum 1280×720; max file size 2 MB. |
| Channel banner | 16:9 | 2560 × 1440 | Safe area for all devices is 1546 × 423 centered. |
| Profile picture | 1:1 | 800 × 800 | Cropped to a circle. |
The fastest way to get it right
The numbers above are correct as of 2026, but platforms tweak them quietly every year. Rather than memorize a table, use a resizer with preset sizes for each platform — drop in your master photo, pick the platform, and download the version already cropped to the exact pixel dimensions the feed will display. ImagElite's image resizer does exactly that: presets for Instagram square, portrait, story, Reel, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube thumbnail and more, with a manual mode if you want pixel-precise dimensions for a custom size.
All resizing happens in your browser, so the originals never leave your device. Batch-resize a folder of product shots in one go and download a ZIP of platform-ready variants.