Search for social media image sizes and you get a table of numbers that was accurate at some point. The numbers change, the tables do not get updated, and half the advice online is years out of date. What does not change is how the platforms crop, and designing around that is far more durable than memorising dimensions.
Aspect ratio matters more than pixel count
Platforms resize your image to fit their layout, so the exact pixel dimensions matter much less than the shape. What breaks a design is a shape mismatch: a square image in a slot expecting portrait gets cropped, and the crop is automatic and centred.
Three ratios cover most of what you need. Square (1:1) is safe almost everywhere. Portrait (4:5) takes the most vertical space in a feed without being cropped on Instagram or Facebook. Vertical (9:16) is the full-screen shape for stories, reels and short video. Landscape (16:9) still suits YouTube thumbnails and link previews.
If you are working out how a design translates from one shape to another, an aspect ratio calculator tells you what the second size has to be to avoid distortion — and whether you will have to crop rather than scale.
Design for the double crop
The mistake that catches most people is that the same image gets cropped differently in different places. A portrait post shows in full in the feed, but the profile grid shows a square crop from the centre. A story is full-screen, but the top and bottom strips are covered by the interface and the profile bubble.
So design with a safe zone. Keep anything essential — text, faces, logos — inside a centred square area of the image, with margin around it. Then the feed version, the grid crop and the preview thumbnail all still make sense. Text pushed to the top or bottom edge is the thing that most often disappears.
Upload larger than the display size
Platforms recompress everything you upload. That is not optional and there is no setting to avoid it. What you can control is what you hand them: an image uploaded at roughly twice the display size survives that compression far better than one uploaded at exactly the display size, because the recompression has more information to work from.
There is a limit to this. Uploading a 6000-pixel image achieves nothing except a slow upload, since the platform will downscale it anyway. Somewhere around 1080 to 1440 pixels on the short edge is the practical sweet spot for feed images.
Never upscale to reach a target size. Enlarging a small image adds pixels but not detail, and the platform's compression then makes the softness more obvious, not less. Resizing down from the original is safe; resizing up is not.
Which format to upload
JPG for photographs. PNG for anything with flat colour, sharp edges or text — logos, screenshots, and graphics with type. Uploading a text-heavy graphic as JPG is the usual reason lettering comes out with fuzzy halos around it, because JPG compression damages exactly the sharp edges that make text readable.
If you are converting between formats for this, remember that turning a transparent PNG into a JPG fills the transparency, normally with white, and that cannot be undone afterwards. The format converter handles the conversion; deciding which format the image should be in is the part worth thinking about.
A workflow that survives the next redesign
Rather than exporting a separate file for every platform, keep one high-resolution master per design, built with the safe zone in mind. Export a square, a 4:5 portrait and a 9:16 vertical from it. Those three cover nearly every placement, and when a platform changes its layout — which it will — you re-export from the master instead of rebuilding.
Keep the master. The most frustrating version of this job is being asked for a new size a year later and finding only the compressed uploads.
Common questions
What image size works across all social platforms?
A 1080 × 1080 square is the safest single size — it displays without cropping almost everywhere. If you want more space in the feed, a 1080 × 1350 portrait (4:5) is the tallest shape Instagram and Facebook will show uncropped, though it is cropped to a square in the profile grid.
Why do my uploads look blurry?
Usually one of three things: the image was uploaded smaller than the display size, it was upscaled from a smaller original, or a graphic containing text was saved as JPG. Upload at roughly twice the display size, never enlarge a small file, and use PNG for anything with sharp edges or lettering.
Does the platform compress my images?
Yes, every time, and there is no way to turn it off. What you can influence is the quality of what you hand over — a larger, cleanly exported original gives the compression more to work with, so the result holds up better than an image that was already compressed before uploading.
Should I export a different file for every platform?
It is easier to keep one high-resolution master and export three shapes from it: square, 4:5 portrait and 9:16 vertical. Those cover almost every placement, and when a platform changes its layout you re-export rather than redesign.
Last updated 2 September 2026