Instagram Image Size (2026): Resize Photos for Posts, Stories and Reels

Instagram doesn't ask for one size. It shows a feed photo anywhere from a wide rectangle to a tall one, so the first decision is shape rather than pixels. Everything on this page is 1080 px wide, and what changes is the height.

Square (1:1) is the safe, even shape. It sits well in a grid and suits product shots, graphics and anything centered. Portrait 4:5 takes up more of the screen as people scroll, which makes it the usual pick for people, food and travel photos. Portrait 3:4 is the tallest feed shape listed here and gives a vertical picture the most room.

Stories and Reels use a full-screen 9:16 frame. Our story size is 1080 x 1920 px, drawn from Meta's design requirements for story ads rather than from Instagram's photo help page, which is why the cards call it Recommended. Reels fill the same tall screen, so a 9:16 picture suits those as well.

A landscape photo works too, but it displays smaller than a portrait one, because the screen is taller than it is wide. If you shoot on a phone held upright, you already have most of what you need.

Two things surprise people. A photo shows up with its edges missing, and a sharp picture looks a little softer once it is posted.

Cropping happens because every part of the app has a frame. A photo outside the range Instagram accepts for a feed post is trimmed to fit, and the grid and story views each show a particular shape. The part that is cut is usually the edges, and nobody asked you which. Cropping the picture yourself, before you upload, puts the decision back in your hands.

Softness comes from file handling. A photo that is much larger than the screen has to be made smaller, and Instagram prepares its own copy of each upload for delivery. Starting from a 1080 px wide file means less of that guesswork, and a clean file at the right size tends to survive it better than a huge original. Treat that as a practical habit rather than a guarantee, since the app can change how it handles uploads at any time.

If sharpness is a worry, avoid stretching a small picture to reach 1080 px. Enlarging cannot add detail, and the tool warns you when a photo gets bigger than it was.

Choosing a size chip or card sets the exact width and height and switches Fit to Crop to fill. The photo is scaled until it covers the frame, then the overflow is trimmed. Nothing is stretched, so faces and logos keep their proportions.

By default the crop is centered. That is fine for a centered subject, and wrong for a portrait where the person stands to one side. Open the settings button on that photo and the focal point picker shows the whole picture with the kept area bright. Click or drag to move it, or use the Left to right and Top to bottom sliders if you prefer the keyboard. Center resets it. Select Save and apply to see the new crop.

If you would rather keep the whole picture, switch Fit to Fit with padding. The photo is shown in full and the leftover space gets a color, white or black or one you choose. It can look deliberate on a quiet background.

For a tighter edit before you size, the Crop Image tool lets you draw the area yourself. For other sizes, the general Image Resizer has presets for more platforms. Large files can go through Compress Image afterward if an upload is slow.