Social Media Image Sizes in 2026: the Only Cheat Sheet You Need

You do not need to memorize seven platforms' image specs. You need one table, bookmarked, and a rough sense of which three ratios actually matter. Here is the table first, then the details for whoever wants them.

The master table

| Platform | Placement | Recommended size | Ratio | Notes | |---|---|---|---|---| | Instagram | Feed (portrait) | 1080x1350 | 4:5 | The favored feed format, takes up the most vertical space | | Instagram | Feed (square) | 1080x1080 | 1:1 | Still fine, just smaller on screen than 4:5 | | Instagram | Feed (landscape) | 1080x566 | 1.91:1 | Rarely worth using, crops hardest on mobile | | Instagram | Stories / Reels | 1080x1920 | 9:16 | Full-screen vertical | | X (Twitter) | In-feed image | 1200x675 to 1600x900 | 16:9 | Sources disagree on the exact source size, see below | | X (Twitter) | Header image | 1500x500 | 3:1 | Max file size 5MB | | LinkedIn | Feed image | 1200x1200 | 1:1 | Square holds up best across mobile and desktop | | LinkedIn | Link preview | 1200x627 | 1.91:1 | Auto-generated from the URL's og:image | | Facebook | Feed image | 1080x1080 or 1080x1350 | 1:1 or 4:5 | Same logic as Instagram, both work | | Pinterest | Pin | 1000x1500 | 2:3 | The one platform that is not 9:16 or square | | YouTube | Thumbnail | 1280x720 | 16:9 | Max file size 2MB | | TikTok | Video cover / in-feed | 1080x1920 | 9:16 | Matches the video frame exactly |

Keep that table open in a tab. Everything below is context for when the table alone is not enough, which is more often than it should be.

The three ratios that cover 90% of posting

Almost every platform above collapses into three shapes:

4:5 (1080x1350). Instagram's and Facebook's preferred feed ratio. It is the tallest rectangle both platforms will show at full width without cropping, so it wins more scroll-stopping real estate than a square post.

9:16 (1080x1920). Full-screen vertical video and Stories. Instagram Stories and Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts all use this frame. If you shoot vertical video once, it covers three platforms without a re-export.

2:3 (1000x1500). Pinterest, alone. It is taller than 4:5 and much taller than 9:16's width-to-height feels on a still image, which is exactly why a straight Instagram-to-Pinterest repost looks cropped or letterboxed. More on that below.

If you design a master asset in one of these three ratios first, most of your per-platform work becomes a light crop rather than a full redesign.

Want to put this into practice? Start a 14-day TimeToPost trial and start scheduling smarter today.

Platform-by-platform notes

Instagram. 1080x1350 (4:5) is the safest default for feed posts, it is what the app favors when deciding how much vertical space to give a post. Square (1080x1080) still works fine, it just occupies less of the screen. Landscape (1080x566, roughly 1.91:1) is technically supported but crops aggressively in the grid view, so most accounts skip it entirely. Stories and Reels are both 1080x1920.

One thing that genuinely varies: Reels cover images. Instagram has published different recommended cover dimensions at different times, and current guidance is not fully consistent between the app's own upload flow and its help documentation. Rather than pick a single number and risk being wrong, the practical move is to use the same 1080x1920 vertical frame as the video itself and let Instagram's cropping handle the cover, since that is what most creators report actually works without visible cropping artifacts.

X (formerly Twitter). In-feed images render at 16:9. The exact source resolution X recommends has shifted and different official guidance has cited numbers from 1200x675 up to 1600x900, both of which are 16:9. Either works, upload the higher end (1600x900) if you want more detail preserved on larger screens, since X compresses down rather than up. The profile header is 1500x500, capped at 5MB.

LinkedIn. Feed images display best at 1200x1200, a full square that does not get cropped in either the mobile or desktop feed. Link previews are a different asset entirely, generated from your URL's og:image metadata at 1200x627, so if you are sharing a link rather than a native image, that is the size to set on your own site's meta tags.

Facebook. Effectively mirrors Instagram: 1080x1080 square or 1080x1350 portrait both display cleanly in feed. If you are already producing a 4:5 asset for Instagram, reuse it for Facebook without modification.

Pinterest. 1000x1500, a 2:3 vertical Pin. This is the platform where getting the ratio wrong costs you the most, because Pinterest's whole layout is built around tall Pins, and anything squarer than 2:3 gets padded or shrunk in the grid.

YouTube. Thumbnails are 1280x720, 16:9, capped at 2MB. This is separate from the video resolution itself, it is the still image viewers click on, so treat it as its own design task rather than a video frame grab.

TikTok. 1080x1920, matching the vertical video frame exactly. There is no separate "cover" spec to worry about the way there arguably is on Instagram, since TikTok's cover is a frame or custom image pulled directly from the same 9:16 canvas.

The crossposting ratio conflict

Here is where a single master image breaks. Say you shoot a 4:5 (1080x1350) product photo for Instagram feed. Post that same file natively to Pinterest and it gets padded or cropped, because Pinterest wants 2:3, noticeably taller and narrower. Post it to X and it gets cropped into 16:9, noticeably wider and shorter, cutting off whatever is at the top and bottom of the frame.

This is the same conflict that shows up when Pinterest auto-imports your Instagram posts: the import brings over the 4:5 or 1:1 asset as-is rather than reformatting it to 2:3, so auto-pinned content routinely looks squeezed compared to a Pin designed for Pinterest natively. If you want the details on that specific auto-import behavior, see our companion post on auto-posting Instagram content to Pinterest.

There is no clever fix here, only a workflow fix: design with the subject centered and enough negative space around it that a 4:5, a 2:3, and a 16:9 crop of the same image all still work. Or, better, keep the source file in its highest resolution and export separate crops per platform rather than relying on each platform to crop it for you.

File size and format caps

Beyond dimensions, most platforms enforce their own file size ceilings. X headers cap at 5MB. YouTube thumbnails cap at 2MB. Most platforms accept JPG and PNG for static images without issue, and most also downscale anything larger than their preferred dimensions rather than rejecting the upload outright, so oversized files usually cost you image quality rather than a failed post. The safer habit is exporting at or near the recommended dimension rather than uploading a much larger file and hoping the platform's compression is kind to it.

One master asset, per-platform crops

The workflow that avoids re-shooting or re-designing per platform: build your source asset at the highest resolution you reasonably can, at whichever of the three core ratios (4:5, 9:16, 2:3) is closest to your primary platform, then export platform-specific crops from that single source rather than starting over each time. Keep the subject away from the edges so a tighter or wider crop does not cut anything important.

This is also where scheduling tools earn their keep. TimeToPost lets you attach a single image to a draft and it handles the native posting shape for X today, without you manually re-exporting for a different upload form; Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Threads are coming soon. For the actual character limits that pair with these image specs, see the 2026 character limits reference. And if free scheduling to Instagram is what you are after specifically, that is covered in our free Instagram scheduling guide.

FAQ

What is the single safest image ratio to design in if I only want one master file? 4:5 (1080x1350) if your primary platforms are Instagram and Facebook. 9:16 (1080x1920) if you are video-first across Reels, TikTok, and Shorts. There is no ratio that is simultaneously safe for Pinterest, since 2:3 is meaningfully different from both.

Why does my Instagram photo look cropped when it shows up on Pinterest? Because Pinterest's native ratio is 2:3, taller and narrower than Instagram's 4:5, and most auto-import or copy-paste workflows carry over the original file rather than reformatting it. Design or crop a dedicated 1000x1500 version for Pinterest rather than reusing the Instagram asset as-is.

Do I need to hit the exact recommended pixel dimensions or just the ratio? The ratio matters more than the exact pixel count for how the image displays. Hitting the recommended resolution matters more for how sharp it looks, since most platforms will scale a smaller image up (softening it) or a larger one down (usually fine) to fit their display size.

Which platform is most forgiving about aspect ratio? Facebook and LinkedIn are the most forgiving in that both a square and a portrait crop display cleanly without heavy cropping. Pinterest and, to a lesser extent, Instagram feed are the least forgiving, since both are optimized around a specific vertical ratio and other shapes get padded or trimmed.

What happens if I upload an image smaller than the recommended size? Most platforms will accept it and scale it up to fit their display frame, which usually costs some sharpness but rarely breaks the post outright. The bigger risk with undersized images is on placements like YouTube thumbnails and X headers, where a stretched, blurry image is genuinely the first thing a viewer sees.