Instagram's sizing rules have not really changed in years, but the platform keeps adding new surfaces and changing the safe areas inside each one. Here are the dimensions that work in 2026, with the bits that catch people out.
Quick reference
- Feed square: 1080 by 1080 pixels (1:1)
- Feed portrait: 1080 by 1350 pixels (4:5). The recommended default in 2026.
- Feed landscape: 1080 by 566 pixels (1.91:1). Rarely worth using.
- Story and Reel: 1080 by 1920 pixels (9:16)
- Profile photo: 320 by 320 pixels (displayed as a 110 px circle)
- Carousel posts: match the first image, every subsequent slide must use the same aspect
Feed posts
Portrait (1080 by 1350) is the format that earns the most feed real estate on a phone. It occupies more vertical space, so the algorithm rewards it with slightly higher reach. If you only post one ratio, post that one.
Square is fine for product shots, quotes, infographics. Landscape almost never makes sense for Instagram because phones are vertical. The platform technically supports it, but you are throwing away half your visible area.
Instagram compresses uploads aggressively to its own internal target. Pre-compress to JPG quality 85 at 1080 wide before uploading. Going larger than 1080 wide is pure waste, Instagram downscales it to 1080 anyway.
Stories and Reels
1080 by 1920 pixels (9:16) is the only size to use here. Both Stories and Reels share the same canvas. The thing to know is the safe zone: roughly the top 250 pixels and bottom 350 pixels get covered by the username, action buttons, and caption overlay. Keep important text and faces inside the middle 1080 by 1320 pixel area.
Reels covers (the thumbnail shown on your profile grid) are cropped to a 1:1 square from the original 9:16 frame, taking the centre. If you want your profile grid to look tidy, design the cover so the centre square stands on its own.
Carousel posts
Carousels are by far the highest-engagement post format on Instagram in 2026. The rules are simple but unforgiving: every slide must use the same aspect ratio as the first. If your first image is portrait (4:5) and slide three is square (1:1), Instagram will either crop or letterbox it.
Set all slides to 1080 by 1350 portrait before uploading. Use our social media cropper to do this in one click, or the resize tool with the Instagram Portrait preset.
Profile photo
Upload a square image at 320 by 320 pixels or larger. Instagram displays it inside a circle at 110 pixels, so design with the round crop in mind. Logos with corners get clipped. Faces should be centred. Anything that runs to the edge of a square frame will be cut off.
What Instagram does to your image
Knowing the dimensions is half the battle. The other half is knowing what Instagram does on its end:
- Re-encodes every upload to JPG, even if you uploaded a PNG or WebP
- Strips most metadata, including colour profiles. Use sRGB or your colours will shift
- Downscales anything larger than 1080 wide
- Compresses aggressively, especially on Stories. Pre-compressing at quality 85 to 90 before uploading gives a better result than letting Instagram do it
The practical workflow: export from your editor at 1080 wide (or 1080 by 1920 for vertical content), in JPG, sRGB colour profile, quality 85. Then upload. Skipping the pre-compress step gives Instagram an excuse to compress harder, and you end up with noticeably softer images.
Common mistakes
- Uploading 4K images thinking they will look sharper. They will not. Instagram caps at 1080 wide and overzealous source images often compress worse, not better.
- Mixing aspect ratios across carousel slides. Always check this before posting, fixing it after means deleting and re-uploading the whole carousel.
- Designing Stories without leaving safe-zone room. The username and bottom action area cover real content.
- Using a logo with hard edges as a profile photo. Round crop will eat the corners.
Tools
Our social media cropper has every Instagram size as a one-click preset. Drop your image, pick "Feed portrait" or "Story / Reel", download. For batch work, the resize tool has the same presets. If you want to compress your output before uploading, the compressor with the Web preset hits the right targets.