Instagram Post Size and Free Resizer for Every Shape

Instagram's help page and Meta's developer docs give different answers. The help page, written for people posting from the app, allows shapes from 1.91:1 to 3:4, so a photo can be as tall as 1080 x 1440. Meta's IG User Media reference, the one scheduling tools use to publish for you, still says pictures must sit between 4:5 and 1.91:1.

In practice a 3:4 photo posts fine from your phone. Sent through the API, the same photo is outside the allowed range, so a scheduler either refuses it or changes it to 4:5 before it goes out.

Pick 1080 x 1350 if you schedule posts or run ads, since it passes everywhere. Pick 1080 x 1440 when you post by hand and want the extra 90 pixels of height, or want the photo to show whole in your profile grid.

Our social media image sizes guide lists the same numbers for every other network.

In January 2025 Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, announced that profile grids would switch from squares to taller rectangles, because most of what people upload is now vertical, as Business Today reported. Meta has not published a pixel size for the tiles.

Kapwing's grid guide measures the tiles at 3:4 and says each post is cropped from the center, while the full post still opens when someone taps it. The resizer uses that 3:4 centered tile for its box.

That means a 1080 x 1440 post shows whole in the grid and every other shape loses its sides. A 1080 x 1350 post keeps about 94% of its width, roughly 34 pixels gone from each edge. A square keeps 75%. A 1080 x 566 landscape keeps only the middle 39%, about 425 pixels.

If a post already looks wrong on your profile, the same Kapwing guide describes an Adjust Preview option in the post's three dot menu that lets you drag the photo inside its tile without changing the post.

A carousel holds up to 20 photos and videos. Instagram's carousel help page says the orientation you choose, square, portrait or landscape, applies to every photo and video in the post; you cannot pick a different one per slide.

Make every slide 1080 x 1350, or every slide 1080 x 1440, and run each picture through the resizer at that size. For one wide picture that runs across several slides, cut it into equal 1080 x 1350 pieces so the edges meet. The Instagram carousel maker builds branded slides at the right size for you.

Get the order right before you share. Afterwards you can reorder or remove slides and edit the caption, but you cannot add a new photo or video; per the same page, your option then is to delete the post. Likes and comments belong to the whole carousel, not to each slide.

Instagram's resolution page names two changes it makes on upload that cost detail: a photo narrower than 320 pixels is enlarged to 320, and a photo in a shape outside 1.91:1 to 3:4 is cropped to fit. It also mentions a cause no resizer can fix: phone cameras vary in quality.

Small originals are the common case. A screenshot of a screenshot, or a photo saved from a chat app, is often far under 1080 pixels wide, and enlarging it cannot add detail back. The resizer warns you when it has to enlarge a photo and by how much, so start from the original file.

Instagram's own advice for a sharp 1080 pixel post is short: use the latest version of the app and upload a photo at least 1080 pixels wide in a shape it keeps. A photo that already meets both is kept at its own resolution instead of being resized again.

For video, Instagram's Reel size page describes an Upload at highest quality switch: tap your profile, then the menu, then Media quality under Your app and media. It notes that higher quality uploads take longer.

Colors that shift after a scheduled post are a different issue. Meta's API reference converts any picture that is not sRGB to sRGB, so export in sRGB if a tool publishes for you.

1080 x 566 is the widest shape Instagram keeps, 1.91:1. Anything wider is cropped at the sides. A 16:9 photo, 1080 x 608, is inside the range and stays as it is.

Landscape posts take the least room in a vertical feed, and in the 3:4 grid they lose more than half their width. Use one when the picture is wide by nature, a panorama or a slide from a talk, and keep the subject in the middle third.

Since July 2022, new video posts under 15 minutes are shared as Reels, as TechCrunch reported. Instagram's Reel size page allows any shape from 1.91:1 to 9:16, at a minimum of 720 pixels and 30 frames per second. Most Reels are 9:16, the full phone screen; for still frames at that shape, the Instagram story size resizer makes 1080 x 1920 pictures.

The same page recommends a 420 x 654 cover photo, a 1:1.55 ratio, and warns that you cannot change the cover after uploading.

When a tool publishes a Reel for you, Meta's publishing reference sets its own limits: MOV or MP4, 3 seconds to 15 minutes, 23 to 60 frames per second and up to 300 MB. A video inside a carousel is not a Reel, the carousel page notes, so it does not show in the Reels tab.

For an image ad in the feed, Meta's ad specs recommend 4:5 at 1440 x 1800 pixels, as a JPG or PNG. The image must be at least 500 pixels wide and no larger than 30 MB, in a shape from 4:5 to 1.91:1, with 1% tolerance on those ratios. The same page suggests up to 125 characters of primary text and a 40 character headline.

Choose 1440 x 1800 in the resizer for ads. A 1% margin is small, so export the exact size rather than cropping by eye in another app.

Instagram only reads pixels. If a design app asks for a print size, 1080 x 1350 pixels at 300 pixels per inch is 3.6 x 4.5 inches, or 9.14 x 11.43 centimeters; 1080 x 1440 is 3.6 x 4.8 inches, or 9.14 x 12.19 centimeters. At 72 pixels per inch, 1080 x 1350 is 15 x 18.75 inches. Export at the pixel size either way.

On 3 November 2026 we ran the resizer in Chrome on a Mac with a 3024 x 4032 test picture, a 3:4 shape. It was a generated image, a color gradient with circles and added grain, not a real photo, so your file sizes will differ.

Every download came out at exactly the size on its button. As JPG: 1080 x 1350 at 308 KB, 1080 x 1440 at 325 KB, 1080 x 1080 at 246 KB, 1080 x 566 at 130 KB and 1440 x 1800 at 504 KB. As PNG the same sizes ran from 1.2 MB to 5 MB. All were under 8 MB, though only the JPGs suit the API.

We then compared the preview with the grid box on and off. The clear part covered 93.8% of the width on 1080 x 1350 and 1440 x 1800, 75% on the square and 39.3% on landscape, the numbers a centered 3:4 tile gives. On 1080 x 1440 there is no box, because the post already has the tile's shape.

We did not post the files to Instagram. The box shows the centered 3:4 crop that Kapwing measured, not a crop we checked inside the app.

On a Mac, open the photo in Preview, choose Tools, then Adjust Size, set the width to 1080 pixels, then select the area to keep and crop it to the height you want, as Apple shows in its Preview guide. The resizer above does both in one step and adds the grid box. It makes the file with the browser's own image export, so nothing leaves your device.

For 9:16 Stories, use the Instagram story size resizer. Style your bio with the Instagram fonts generator, and pick hashtags with the Instagram hashtag generator.

Spreadcast designs Instagram posts on a 1080 x 1350 canvas in your brand, writes the caption and schedules them with your other networks. It publishes through Meta's API, so it holds every picture to 4:5 through 1.91:1 before it goes out.

A taller photo you add is not refused. It is shown whole on a blurred copy of itself, or cut to the spot you chose in the editor, and saved as a JPEG. In a carousel every picture takes the shape of the first, as Instagram requires. One limit: Spreadcast takes up to 10 pictures in a post, half the 20 Instagram allows.

If you make an app, start free with your App Store link and see your first posts before you pay. For any other brand, the plans page shows what each plan includes.