Instagram image sizes in 2026 (copy-paste templates)

I look up Instagram image sizes way more than I should have to. Part of it is that the platform keeps quietly nudging the feed taller, so the number that was right two years ago makes your post look small now. The rest of it is that when you go looking, you land on a page that's mostly ads with a tiny table wedged in the middle, and half of those tables are still telling you to make a square. So I built the version I actually wanted: every current Instagram dimension in one place, click any number to copy it, grab a template if you just want to start from the right rectangle. It's the Instagram slice of the full social media image size guide, which does the same thing for every other platform.

The thing about Instagram is that the canvas you upload and the frame people see are often not the same shape. Your post fills one ratio in the feed and gets a different center crop on your profile grid. Stories and Reels look like a clean full-screen rectangle, then the app drops a handle on top, a reply bar on the bottom, and a column of icons up the right side, and suddenly your caption is sitting under a Share button. So this isn't only a list of pixels. It's the pixels plus where Instagram quietly covers them up.

Here's the whole set. Pick a surface, copy the size, or pull the template.

Instagram post size: make it 4:5 (1080 x 1350)

If you take one number from this page, take 1080 x 1350. That's the 4:5 portrait post, and in 2026 it's the default I'd reach for on almost everything. The feed is vertical, people scroll on a phone, and a 4:5 frame just takes up more of the screen as someone thumbs past. Square (1080 x 1080) still works and it's predictable, it just gives up real estate to the taller format for no real reason. Landscape is 1080 x 566 at 1.91:1, and it's the smallest thing you can put in a vertical feed, so I almost never use it unless the photo is genuinely a wide shot that would die cropped.

There's a catch with the grid though. Your profile grid takes a 3:4 center crop of whatever you post. So a 4:5 image that looks perfect in the feed gets a little trimmed top and bottom on your profile. If the subject is dead center you'll never notice. If you put the important part at the very top edge, the grid eats it.

Instagram Story and Reel dimensions (the safe zone)

Stories and Reels both live on the same 1080 x 1920 (9:16) canvas, and this is the surface people mess up the most. It looks like a full-screen rectangle, so you design to the full-screen rectangle, and then the app covers the parts you cared about.

On a Story, the top roughly 250 pixels hold your handle, your avatar, and the timestamp. The bottom roughly 250 pixels hold the reply bar and any stickers. So your real safe zone is the center band, somewhere around 1080 x 1420. Put your headline in the dead center, not up top where your own username lands on it.

Reels are tighter. Same canvas, but now you've got the like, comment, and share icons running up the right edge, and the caption sitting along the bottom. So you lose a strip on the right and a bigger chunk at the bottom, maybe 340 pixels worth. Keep on-screen text centered and a little high, and stay off the right edge. The number that's easy to forget is the Reel cover. It's a 1080 x 1920 still, but it crops three different ways: full in the Reels tab, a 4:5 slice in the feed, and a 3:4 slice on your grid. So whatever you want people to read on the cover has to be centered enough to survive all three crops.

Carousels and Highlights

Carousels can be 1080 x 1350 (4:5) or 1080 x 1080 (square), and you get up to 20 cards now. The one rule that bites people: the first card sets the ratio, and every other card gets cropped to match it. So if your first card is 4:5 and card three is a square, card three loses its sides. Size them all the same before you upload and you'll never think about it again.

Highlight covers are a fun little trap. You build them on a 1080 x 1920 canvas, but Instagram shows them as a tiny circle on your profile, a small crop pulled from the exact center. So the whole canvas exists basically to position one icon in the middle. Put the mark dead center, leave the rest empty, and don't waste time designing a full 9:16 you'll never see.

Ads, if you're running them

The ad sizes mostly mirror the organic ones. Feed image ads come in portrait 1080 x 1350 and square 1080 x 1080, and the 4:5 is the stronger one for the same reason it is organically: more screen on mobile. Story and Reel ads are the full 1080 x 1920, but leave more room at the bottom than you would for an organic Story, because the ad chrome adds a call-to-action button down there that will sit on top of your art. Carousel ad cards are 1080 x 1080, two to ten of them, all locked to the same ratio.

File sizes and formats, quick version

Instagram takes JPG and PNG for photos, and you've got a generous ceiling, up to 30 MB for an image, which you'll basically never hit at these dimensions. Use PNG when there's text or sharp edges in the frame so it stays crisp, JPG when it's a photo and you want a smaller file. Always upload at 1080 wide at minimum. Instagram compresses everything on the way in, so handing it the exact recommended size gives you the sharpest result; hand it something tiny and it'll upscale and you'll see the mush.

Just grab the template

If you don't want to think about any of this, hit the template pack button up in the tool. You get a PNG for every Instagram surface at the exact upload size, named so you know what each one is, with the safe area and the crop marks drawn right on the canvas. Drop one into Figma or Photoshop as a reference layer and design on top of it. The Story and Reel templates have the top chrome, the bottom bar, and the right-side icon column marked, so you can see exactly where not to put your text. The whole pack zips up in one click.

It's the same idea I use for the print dimensions tool, just pointed at screens instead of paper. If you make assets for both, the print one handles DPI and bleed the same way this one handles crops and safe zones.

If you're posting the same content across platforms, the sizes don't line up the way you'd hope. The Facebook image sizes guide and the TikTok image sizes guide are built the same way as this one, so you can grab the right rectangle for each before you start instead of resizing the same graphic three times.

FAQ

The full set, with the safe zones and the downloadable templates, is in the tool at the top. Copy what you need, or take the whole pack.