Instagram image sizes 2026: the complete guide

Instagram has five image formats. Two of them compete for the same spot in the feed, and which one wins depends less on the image than on how it gets uploaded.

The formats in pixels

Anything else, Instagram resizes. You just don't get a say in how.

4:5 stays the default, even though 3:4 is taller

Since May 2025 Instagram shows 3:4 photos uncropped in the feed, as single images and in carousels. It's the format most phone cameras shoot in anyway, and it's 90 pixels taller than 4:5. So a little more screen on a phone.

The catch: 3:4 only works if you post yourself, in the app. Meta accepts at most 4:5 for feed ads, so a 3:4 post can't be promoted. And the API that scheduling tools like Buffer or Later publish through also only accepts 4:5 to 1.91:1. If you schedule a post, or later decide to put money behind it, 3:4 gets you an error message.

That's why 4:5 is our default format. It's the tallest format that goes through everywhere, and the difference to 3:4 is a thin strip. If you only ever post by hand and never promote, you can use 3:4, and Postmint offers both, as a single image and as a carousel. Everyone else is better off with 4:5.

You can't go taller than 3:4 in the feed. Upload a 1080 × 1920 Story template as a feed post and it gets cropped at the top and bottom, and usually it's the line you can least afford to lose.

Landscape is a special case and, most of the time, a mistake. On a phone, 1080 × 566 is a thin strip between the profile row and the like button. There are reasons to use it, say a screenshot or a chart that has to be wide. "Looks good on desktop" isn't one of them.

The profile grid crops the sides

Since 2025 the profile no longer shows squares but 3:4 tiles. Every post is cropped to the center for it, whatever format it was uploaded in. In the feed the image stays complete; only the profile view loses something.

How much depends on the format. A square post loses 135 pixels on each side in the grid, and only the middle 810 stay visible. At 4:5 it's about 34 pixels per side, which almost never matters. Text that runs to the edge of a square is cut off in the profile. And the profile is exactly what people look at before deciding whether to follow.

In a carousel, the format of the first slide applies to all the others, up to 20 of them. Set up a carousel as square and you get a cropped cover in the grid. That's why Postmint builds carousels in 4:5 by default, and in 3:4 or square if you ask for it.

Safe zones for UI elements only apply to Stories and Reels

In a Story, Instagram lays its own controls over the image: the profile row and progress bar at the top, the reply field and actions at the bottom. In Postmint we reserve 250 pixels at the top and 350 at the bottom. That leaves 1320 pixels of height where text can sit without a button covering half of it.

For Story ads that isn't enough. Meta recommends keeping 14% free at the top and 35% at the bottom, plus 6% on each side. At 1080 × 1920 that's roughly 270 pixels at the top and 670 at the bottom, because the ad's button also sits over the bottom of the image.

In the feed, nothing sits on the image. Name, caption and actions are above and below it. Still, you constantly see feed posts with their text stuck in a narrow band in the middle, because someone copied the Story margins. That costs a third of the canvas you just chose 4:5 for. The only margin to watch in the feed is the one at the sides, and that comes from the profile grid.

Export at 1080 pixels wide

Below that, Instagram compresses visibly harder, especially gradients and large flat areas of color. Above it, the image gets scaled down anyway. 1080 is the width the app falls back to in the end. For ads Meta recommends 1440 × 1800, with the same aspect ratio.

Templates in these formats

The template gallery has ready-made layouts in 4:5, 3:4, square and 9:16. You describe the post in one sentence, and what comes out has the dimensions from the table above and your own brand colors.