How to do it, step by step
- Decide the shape before you shoot Set your camera to 4:3 for feed photos, which crops to 3:4 portrait without losing the sides, and 9:16 for stories and reels. Composing in the final shape beats cropping later, because cropping later always costs you something at the edges.
- Export at 1080 pixels on the short edge 1080x1440 for portrait, 1080x1080 for square, 1080x1920 for stories and reels. Anything smaller gets upscaled and looks soft; anything much larger is resized down anyway.
- Keep faces and text out of the safe-zone margins Leave roughly 250 pixels clear at the top and bottom of a story, and keep clear of the bottom 420 pixels and right 180 pixels of a reel, where captions and buttons sit.
- Set the first carousel slide deliberately Every slide inherits the aspect ratio of slide one, so upload the first image in the shape you want the whole set to be.
- Check the profile grid crop The grid tile is 3:4, so a 3:4 post appears uncropped and every other shape loses something. Keep anything you need visible on the grid inside the central square.
- Upload over wi-fi and check the result Instagram compresses on upload, and a weak connection produces a worse result. Open the post afterwards and confirm nothing important was cropped away.
Every Instagram size in one table
| Where it appears | Pixels | Aspect ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed photo, portrait | 1080 x 1440 | 3:4 | The tallest the feed shows, and uncropped on the grid. Use this by default |
| Feed photo, portrait, older | 1080 x 1350 | 4:5 | Still accepted and still tall. Slightly shorter than 3:4 |
| Feed photo, square | 1080 x 1080 | 1:1 | Safe everywhere, smaller in the feed than 3:4 |
| Feed photo, landscape | 1080 x 566 | 1.91:1 | The smallest a feed post can look. Avoid unless the photo needs it |
| Story | 1080 x 1920 | 9:16 | Keep about 250 px clear top and bottom |
| Reel | 1080 x 1920 | 9:16 | Bottom 420 px and right 180 px carry the interface |
| Reel cover | 1080 x 1920 | 9:16 | Shown cropped to a portrait tile on your profile |
| Carousel slide | Matches slide one | 3:4, 4:5, 1:1 or 1.91:1 | Every slide is fitted to the first slide's shape |
| Profile picture | 320 x 320 or larger | 1:1 | Displayed as a circle, so keep the subject centred |
| Profile grid tile | Cropped from your upload | 3:4 | A 3:4 post fits it exactly. Anything else is cropped |
One number covers most of this: 1080 pixels on the short edge. Everything else is a question of shape.
Feed posts and which portrait shape to use
Instagram's feed gives a post a fixed width and a maximum height, and the maximum got taller. For years 4:5 at 1080x1350 was as tall as a feed post could be. Instagram now accepts 3:4 at 1080x1440, which is taller still, so it occupies more of the screen than a 4:5, far more than a square and far more again than a landscape. More screen means more time on the post before someone scrolls past.
3:4 has a second advantage that 4:5 does not. The profile grid tile is also 3:4, so a 3:4 post appears on your profile exactly as you framed it, with nothing cropped away. A 4:5 post still loses a slice there.
The practical version: shoot in 4:3 in your camera app, which is what the iPhone main camera gives you anyway, and crop to 3:4 portrait. That costs you the sides of the frame rather than the top and bottom, and it is a smaller cut than going all the way to 4:5. Composing in something close to the final shape beats cropping hard afterwards, because whatever you framed carefully at the edges goes first.
4:5 has not stopped working. If your back catalogue is 4:5, or a scheduling tool exports it, the feed still shows it tall. 3:4 is simply the taller option now.
Landscape still has a place. Wide scenery, group shots too wide to crop, and anything that will also live somewhere else. Just know what it costs in the feed.
Carousels and the first-slide rule
The rule that catches people out: every slide in a carousel is fitted to the aspect ratio of the first slide. Upload a square first and your tall portraits are cropped to square. Upload a 3:4 first and your squares get padded or cropped to fill it.
So decide the shape, set the first image to it, and make every other slide match before you upload. A carousel takes up to 20 images and video clips mixed together, and each clip is fitted the same way.
This matters most for photo dumps, where a set often comes from several cameras and several apps. There is a full walkthrough of choosing and ordering that set in how to pick photos for a photo dump.
Stories, reels and the safe zones
Stories and reels are both 1080x1920, but they are covered by different interface elements, and anything underneath is unreadable.
| Format | Covered area | What sits there |
|---|---|---|
| Story, top | About 250 px | Progress bars, your name, the time |
| Story, bottom | About 250 px | Reply box, share and like buttons |
| Reel, bottom | About 420 px | Caption, audio name, account name |
| Reel, right edge | About 180 px | Like, comment, share and more buttons |
The safe zone for a story is therefore roughly the middle 1080x1420. Faces, text and anything you want people to read belong inside it. For reels, keep the subject in the upper two thirds and left of the button column.
Two more things. Photos posted to stories are fitted rather than cropped, so a 3:4 or 4:5 photo appears with a background filling the rest of the screen. And a reel's cover frame is shown cropped on your profile grid, so choose a cover with the subject centred rather than one with a face at the top.
The profile grid crop
Your profile grid shows a 3:4 portrait tile. A post uploaded at 3:4 fills it exactly and loses nothing. Everything else is fitted to that shape from the centre: a 4:5 portrait loses a slice, a square loses more, and a 9:16 reel cover loses a lot.
Two habits handle this. Post at 3:4 when the grid matters to you, and keep the subject of any photo you care about inside the central square of the frame, which survives every grid crop the app has used. After posting, open your profile and look, because Instagram lets you adjust the grid crop on many posts after the fact, and it takes seconds.
If you want the grid to read as a set rather than a row of unrelated tiles, the colour and contrast matter more than the crop. There is a walkthrough in making your photos look consistent.
Keeping the quality Instagram gives you
Instagram compresses every upload. You cannot avoid that, but you can avoid making it worse.
- Upload at 1080 pixels wide at minimum. Below that the app upscales, which is where the mushy look comes from. Uploading larger than 1080 is fine; it gets resized down, which is gentler than being scaled up.
- Do not upload a screenshot of a photo. A screenshot has already been compressed and resized once, and the second pass compounds it.
- Upload over wi-fi. On a weak connection the app has been observed to send a more heavily compressed version.
- Avoid fine grain and heavy noise at export. Compression struggles with noise more than with almost anything else, so a heavily grained photo loses more detail than a clean one.
- Keep gradients simple. Large smooth areas like skies and painted walls are where blocking artefacts show first.
Questions people ask
What is the best Instagram photo size in 2026?
1080 x 1440 pixels, the 3:4 portrait shape, for feed photos. It is the tallest the feed shows and the only shape the profile grid does not crop. The older 4:5 at 1080 x 1350 still works. Square is 1080 x 1080, and stories and reels are 1080 x 1920.
What size are Instagram stories and reels?
Both are 1080 x 1920 pixels, a 9:16 shape. Keep about 250 pixels clear at the top and bottom of a story, and stay clear of the bottom 420 pixels and right 180 pixels of a reel, where the interface sits.
Why does Instagram crop my photos on my profile grid?
Because the grid tile is 3:4 and your post is a different shape, so it is fitted from the centre. Post at 1080 x 1440 and nothing is cropped. Otherwise keep your subject inside the central square, and adjust the grid crop after posting, which many posts allow.
Why do all my carousel photos get cropped?
Because every slide is fitted to the aspect ratio of the first slide. Set slide one to the shape you want, usually 3:4, and match the other slides to it before uploading.
Does uploading a bigger image improve Instagram quality?
Only up to a point. Instagram resizes down to about 1080 pixels wide, so uploading larger is harmless and sometimes helps, while uploading smaller than 1080 forces the app to upscale and is the main cause of soft, mushy posts.