Instagram carousel size: 3:4 or 4:5?
Instagram keeps photos from 1.91:1 to 3:4, so a carousel can use any of four shapes:
| Shape | Ratio | Slide size | Your grid shows of slide 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tall portrait | 3:4 | 1080 × 1440 | All of it |
| Portrait | 4:5 | 1080 × 1350 | The middle 1012 × 1350 |
| Square | 1:1 | 1080 × 1080 | The middle 810 × 1080 |
| Landscape | 1.91:1 | 1080 × 566 | The middle 424 × 566 |
3:4 gives each slide the most room on screen and nothing cut on your grid. The catch is scheduling: tools post through Instagram’s API, and the API only takes photos from 4:5 to 1.91:1. If a tool schedules your carousels, make them 4:5 and keep the first slide’s text 34 pixels in from each side.
How many slides can an Instagram carousel have?
Up to 20 photos and videos, in any mix. In Instagram’s words: “You can share a post with up to 20 photos and videos as a single post, also known as a carousel, to your Instagram feed.” After you post, you can reorder slides or remove them, but you can’t add new ones.
Instagram doesn’t publish a file size limit for posting from the app. Scheduling tools, which post through its API, can send each photo as a JPEG of up to 8 MB.
Videos in a carousel are not reels: they don’t show in your Reels tab or get reels features.
If you’d rather not lay the slides out yourself, HandlePilot’s Carousel Maker writes and designs them in one of 60 styles, free for 5 carousels a month.
Can carousel slides be different sizes?
No. Instagram’s help center is plain about it: “the orientation you choose (square, portrait or landscape) affects all of the photos or videos in your post. You can’t select a different orientation for each photo or video.” Every slide is cropped to that one shape, and you can tap each one to move it inside the frame before you post.
So pick one shape and design every slide at it. A landscape photo in a portrait carousel loses its sides.
Seamless carousel size
A seamless (panorama) carousel is one wide image cut into slides, so a picture or a line runs across them as people swipe. Make the canvas 1080 pixels wide for every slide, at your slide height, then cut it into 1080-pixel slices:
| Slides | 3:4 canvas | 4:5 canvas | Square canvas |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2160 × 1440 | 2160 × 1350 | 2160 × 1080 |
| 3 | 3240 × 1440 | 3240 × 1350 | 3240 × 1080 |
| 4 | 4320 × 1440 | 4320 × 1350 | 4320 × 1080 |
| 5 | 5400 × 1440 | 5400 × 1350 | 5400 × 1080 |
| 6 | 6480 × 1440 | 6480 × 1350 | 6480 × 1080 |
| 7 | 7560 × 1440 | 7560 × 1350 | 7560 × 1080 |
| 10 | 10800 × 1440 | 10800 × 1350 | 10800 × 1080 |
The picker above works it out for any number of slides up to 20. Cut exactly on the 1080-pixel lines, or the picture won’t line up from one slide to the next.
The first slide and your Instagram grid
Your profile shows only the first slide, as a 3:4 tile. On a 3:4 carousel that’s the whole slide. On a 4:5 carousel the grid keeps the middle 1012 × 1350, and on a square one the middle 810 × 1080. Instagram’s own sizes guide puts it this way: “You can still post Carousels as square images, but the grid view will remain 3:4.”
Treat slide 1 as the cover, with the title and any face in the middle. The sizes guide has the grid crop for single posts and reels too.
LinkedIn carousel size
On LinkedIn, a carousel is a document post: you upload a PDF and people swipe through its pages. LinkedIn doesn’t publish a page size for it. What its help center does say:
- PDF, PowerPoint or Word files, up to 100 MB and 300 pages.
- Anyone who can see the post can download it as a PDF.
- You can’t change the document after posting, only the text above it.
With no set page size, you can export the slides you made for Instagram as one PDF. LinkedIn’s carousel ads are a separate format with their own spec: 2 to 10 cards, 1080 × 1080 recommended, up to 10 MB each.
Make the carousel in your voice
HandlePilot’s Carousel Maker writes a carousel from your topic, in your voice, and lays it out at 1080 × 1350 or square, ready to post. Five a month are free.