Instagram post size: which shape to use
Instagram keeps a photo as it is when it’s between 1.91:1 (wide) and 3:4 (tall), and between 320 and 1080 pixels wide. It sizes a wider file down to 1080 pixels, enlarges a narrower one to 320, and crops a photo outside that range of shapes to fit, according to Instagram’s help center.
All four post shapes in the table work. They differ in how much of the screen they take and what your grid cuts. A 3:4 post (1080 × 1440) takes the most room in the feed and shows whole on your grid. Instagram added it in May 2025. It’s the format “almost every phone camera defaults to,” wrote Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, and “if you upload a 3:4 image, it’ll now appear just exactly as you shot it.” A 4:5 post (1080 × 1350) was the tallest before that. It still works everywhere, and your grid trims 34 pixels off each side. Square and landscape posts show smaller in the feed, and the grid crops them hard.
Scheduling apps are the exception. They post through Instagram’s API, and the API only takes photos from 4:5 to 1.91:1, as JPEGs of up to 8 MB, so a tool has to crop a 3:4 slide or can’t post it. If you schedule, design at 4:5.
The Instagram grid: what 3:4 cuts
Your profile shows every post as a tall 3:4 tile, the “grid view” in Instagram’s own sizes guide for creators. Any other shape is cropped to its middle:
| You post | Size | Your grid shows | Cut off |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3:4 post | 1080 × 1440 | All of it | Nothing |
| 4:5 post | 1080 × 1350 | 1012 × 1350 | 34 px on each side |
| Square post | 1080 × 1080 | 810 × 1080 | 135 px on each side |
| Landscape post | 1080 × 566 | 424 × 566 | 328 px on each side |
| Reel or its cover | 1080 × 1920 | 1080 × 1440 | 240 px top and bottom |
A carousel shows only its first slide, cropped like a post of the same shape. Keep titles and faces in the middle and they survive both the feed and the grid.
Which Instagram size to use when
| You’re posting | Use |
|---|---|
| A photo from your phone | Post it as it is if it’s 3:4 |
| A post or carousel you publish yourself | 1080 × 1440 |
| A post or carousel a scheduling tool publishes | 1080 × 1350 |
| A landscape photo | Up to 1080 × 566, or on a 3:4 canvas with a border |
The free resizer puts a landscape photo on a 3:4 canvas for you, on a blurred copy of itself or a plain colour.
Export settings for Instagram
Photos
Export photos 1080 pixels wide, as JPG in sRGB. Instagram sizes anything wider down to 1080, so a bigger file doesn’t look sharper, and its API asks for sRGB JPG anyway.
Videos
Export reels and story videos at 1080 × 1920 and 30 frames a second or more, in H.264 (high profile, progressive, 4:2:0) with stereo audio at 48 kHz. Those are the settings in Instagram’s help center, which puts a reel’s minimum at 720 pixels and 30 frames a second. The help center gives no bit rate. The API takes video up to 25 Mbps, with 128 kbps audio.
Before you upload, turn on Upload at highest quality: your profile, the menu at the top right, then Media quality.
Instagram file size limits
Instagram doesn’t publish a file size limit for posting from the app, and its help center has no page on it. The limits it does publish are for its API, which scheduling tools post through: 8 MB for a photo, 300 MB for a reel and 100 MB for a story video.
The “30 MB for photos, 4 GB for videos” you’ll see on other pages is Meta’s limit for ads.
If a scheduling tool refuses a photo, check that it’s a JPEG under 8 MB and between 4:5 and 1.91:1. A 3:4 photo has to go up from the app.
Every Instagram size in detail
- Reel size and length1080 × 1920Up to 20 minutes, and the 3-minute limit for new viewers.
- Story size and length1080 × 1920Instagram’s safe area, and what happens after 60 seconds.
- Carousel size1080 × 144020 slides, seamless canvases and LinkedIn.
- Post sizes1080 × 1440Four shapes, and what each loses on your grid.
Make posts that fit, every time
HandlePilot’s Carousel Maker writes carousels in your voice and lays them out at 1080 × 1350 or square, five a month on the free plan. Reel Maker, on the paid plans, cuts your footage into 1080 × 1920 reels with captions.