Instagram post size: the exact pixels, and a tool that exports them

For almost every photo, 4:5 at 1080×1350 is the right answer. It is the tallest shape Instagram has always shown uncropped in the feed, so it takes up the most screen, and it only loses a thin strip from each side in the 3:4 profile grid that Instagram switched to in January 2025.

Instagram added native 3:4 (1080×1440) in May 2025. Use it when you want the post to fill the grid exactly, or when the photo came straight from a phone camera, which shoots 3:4 anyway. The feed shows it slightly cropped on some app versions, so keep faces away from the very top edge.

Square (1080×1080) still works and is the easiest crop for product shots and logos, but it looks small next to portrait posts. Landscape (1080×566) is only worth it for panoramas and screenshots; on a phone it renders as a narrow strip.

Instagram's resizing rule is based on width. Anything wider than 1080 px is scaled down to 1080 on their servers, using a fast resampler that softens fine detail, and then re-encoded as JPEG. A 4000 px camera export therefore goes through two lossy steps before anyone sees it. A 1080 px file goes through one, and a gentle one.

The height simply follows the aspect ratio. If your ratio is outside 1.91:1 to 4:5 (or 3:4), Instagram forces a crop. Cropping here, where you can see the frame, beats letting an algorithm decide what stays in.

• Carousels share one aspect ratio, set by the first slide. Export every slide at the same size (1080×1350 is the usual choice) or Instagram will crop the others to match. Up to 20 slides are allowed.
• Profile grid previews are 3:4, which is narrower than 4:5. A 4:5 post therefore loses a thin strip from each side (the visible area is about 1012×1350); a square post is shown letterboxed.
• Recommended minimum width is 320 px. Smaller images are upscaled and look soft.
• File size: Instagram doesn't publish an app limit, but files over a couple of megabytes are compressed harder in our tests. The tool's default range of 500 KB to 1 MB has held up best.