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TikTok aspect ratio calculator

Solve a TikTok width or height at 9:16 for video and covers, or 3:4 for photo posts, and see exactly what the app does to a landscape upload when it arrives.

Width and height

With the ratio unlocked, each side is yours to set and the shape below follows.

Aspect ratio

9:16

A 9:16 frame.

How this is worked out

  • Reduced by their greatest common divisor: 9:16
  • Width divided by height: 0.5625
  • Both terms are small enough to print as a ratio.

Lock to a named shape

TikTok shapes

Video and cover (9:16)

The whole screen, with the button column on the right and the caption across the bottom drawn over it.

1 image resizer preset match this shape.

Photo post (3:4)

Taller than square and well short of the screen, so a photo post and a video cover are different files.

1 image resizer preset match this shape.

Profile photo (1:1)

Square in storage, circular on screen, and the smallest source anywhere in this family.

1 image resizer preset match this shape.

Landscape upload (16:9)

Accepted and then letterboxed into the vertical player, with grey bands above and below it.

No preset in our image resizer uses this shape here.

Every aspect ratio TikTok supports

TikTok is a vertical surface with an interface painted over it. Three shapes matter, and a fourth is accepted without being wanted.

  • Video and cover, 9:16. The whole screen, with the button column on the right and the caption across the bottom drawn over it. In our image resizer: Video / Story cover at 1080x1920px.
  • Photo post, 3:4. Taller than square and well short of the screen, so a photo post and a video cover are different files. In our image resizer: Photo post at 1080x1440px.
  • Profile photo, 1:1. Square in storage, circular on screen, and the smallest source anywhere in this family. In our image resizer: Profile photo at 200x200px.
  • Landscape upload, 16:9. Accepted and then letterboxed into the vertical player, with grey bands above and below it. Nothing in our image resizer exports this shape for this platform, which tells you how rarely it is wanted here.

The frame is 9:16, the usable area is smaller

Solving for the full screen gives you the file size. It does not give you the part of that file anyone can actually see, because TikTok draws its own controls on top of your frame rather than around it.

  • The button column runs up the right-hand side, so anything important in that strip sits behind a like count.
  • The caption, the handle and the sound label occupy the bottom of the frame, which is where a lot of people put their captions too.
  • The safe part is the middle band. Compose for it and the full-screen shape becomes a margin rather than a trap.
  • A cover is also seen as a small tile on your profile grid, cropped again, where a sentence of text is a grey smudge.
  • None of this changes the shape you export. It changes where the subject goes inside it, which is the part a calculator cannot decide for you.

Photo posts are 3:4, which is not the video shape

The most common mistake here is assuming everything on TikTok is full screen. Photo posts are noticeably shorter, so a cover exported for video and reused as a photo is cropped at both ends.

  • A 3:4 photo is three quarters as wide as it is tall. A 9:16 video frame is nine sixteenths, which is a materially taller shape.
  • Forcing a photo into the video shape crops the top and the bottom away; padding it instead leaves bands the feed will not hide.
  • Mixed photo sets should share a shape before you upload, for the same reason a carousel does anywhere else.
  • Solve for both shapes while you have the original open. Two exports from one source beats one export cropped twice.
  • The avatar is a third shape again, square in storage and circular on screen, so a wordmark is unreadable at the size it is drawn.

Solving a TikTok size from the shape

Start from the shape rather than from a remembered pixel pair, because the pair you remember is usually the video one and half of what you post is not video.

  1. Enter the width of your source, which for phone footage is the short side of the file rather than the long one.
  2. Lock the vertical shape for video and covers, or the photo shape for a photo post, and read the height off.
  3. If the solved height is taller than your source, you are upscaling. Go back for the original clip rather than stretching an export.
  4. Sketch the safe middle band onto the solved frame before you design anything into it, so the interface is accounted for from the start.
  5. Export at the pair you solved, not at something close to it, so the app has nothing left to reframe on your behalf.
The rest of the job

You just fixed one post. Now do the month.

The tiktok aspect ratio calculator solves one piece of one post. OctoSpark plans, writes and schedules the whole calendar across every network you use, publishes it for you, and reports what actually performed.

  • One calendar for every network
  • Schedule once, publish everywhere
  • Drafts written in your own voice
  • See what actually performed
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Frequently asked questions

How this tool works, what it cannot do, and what happens to what you put into it.

  • What aspect ratio is TikTok?

    9:16 for video and covers, which is the full phone screen. Photo posts are 3:4, noticeably shorter, and the profile photo is square. Landscape uploads are accepted but letterboxed into the vertical player.

  • Can I upload a 16:9 video to TikTok?

    You can, and it will publish. It is shown inside the vertical player with bands above and below, so it occupies a fraction of the screen that every other video fills completely. Re-frame it vertically if the video matters.

  • Why does my TikTok cover look cropped on my profile?

    Because the profile grid crops it again. A cover is composed for a full-screen 9:16 frame, then shown as a small tile in a grid, so anything near the top or bottom of the cover is trimmed there.

  • Are TikTok photo posts the same shape as videos?

    No, and assuming they are is the usual reason a photo post looks cut off. Photos are 3:4 and video is 9:16, so a file exported for one is cropped or padded when it is used for the other.

  • Is my data private?

    Yes. This tool does its work in your browser, so whatever you type, paste or upload stays on your device. Nothing is sent to our servers, which is also why it keeps working if you go offline after the page has loaded.

  • Is this really free?

    Yes. Every tool here is free with no account, no credit card and no usage cap. They exist so that the people who need our scheduling product find us, which only works if the tools are genuinely useful on their own.

  • Do I need an account?

    No. Open the page and use it. An account is only for OctoSpark itself, where you plan, schedule and publish a whole calendar rather than fixing one post at a time.

  • Can I use the output commercially?

    Yes. Anything you produce here is yours, including for client and commercial work. We claim no rights over it and we do not watermark it.