Instagram image resizer

How to resize an image for Instagram

Instagram works to a 1080 pixel canvas and re-encodes everything that arrives, so the only width worth uploading is the width it is going to keep. Resize first and the visible downscale is the one you chose rather than one applied for you.

1. 1Start from the largest original you have, not a copy already exported for somewhere else. Every export is another lossy pass and they stack up.
2. 2Pick the preset you are genuinely posting to. There are 5 Instagram sizes here, starting with the square post at 1080x1080px.
3. 3Choose Cover to fill the frame, which trims the long edge evenly from both sides, or Contain to keep the whole picture and pad the gap. Contain pads white, so a photo destined for a dark layout shows a white border.
4. 4If you export JPEG, remember it has no transparency: a logo with a transparent background lands on a white square. That is the one case worth going back for PNG.
5. 5Check the result at the size it will be seen. The feed draws a portrait post at roughly a third of a phone screen, and type that reads on a laptop disappears there.
6. 6Posting the same picture as a story too? Export it again at 1080x1920 instead of letting a feed-sized file be stretched to fill the screen.

Every Instagram image size, and the ratio each one forces

These are the five sizes an account actually needs. The ratio matters more than the pixel count, because the ratio decides which part of the picture survives the crop.

• Square post: 1080x1080px. The classic 1:1 feed post.
• Portrait post: 1080x1350px. 4:5, takes the most feed height.
• Landscape post: 1080x566px. 1.91:1 for wide shots.
• Story / Reel: 1080x1920px. 9:16 full screen.
• Profile photo: 320x320px, a ratio of 1:1. Displayed as a circle.
• 1080 pixels is the working width. Anything wider is scaled down by Instagram before a single person sees it, and you have no say in how.
• The 4:5 portrait is the tallest a feed post may be, which is why it takes the most screen and why most accounts default to it over the square.
• A profile photo is stored square and drawn as a circle, so the corners of the 320x320 export are never visible. Keep the face centred and leave a margin.

What goes wrong when the size is off on Instagram

Nearly every complaint about Instagram ruining a photo comes down to one of three things, and two of them are settled before you upload.

• Stacked compression: a screenshot that already carries JPEG artefacts gets those artefacts hardened by Instagram’s own pass. Resize from the original, never from a copy you saved back off a feed.
• A centre crop that eats the subject: Cover trims the long edge evenly from both sides, so a wide group photo loses the people at each end when it becomes 4:5.
• Text at the edge of a story: the top and bottom of a 1080x1920 frame carry interface, your profile row above and the reply bar below, so anything pushed hard against those edges sits under a control.

When resizing is not the answer

Resizing fixes the frame, not the picture inside it. If the subject sits off to one side, no preset will centre it, and Cover will crop the interesting half away while you watch.

• Because the file is redrawn on a canvas, the export carries none of the original metadata: no GPS coordinates, no camera model. Useful for a phone photo, worth knowing if you wanted that data kept.
• For a carousel, resize every slide to the same preset before you start. Instagram applies the first slide’s ratio to the whole set, so a mixed batch gets cropped to match.