Twitter/X image sizes in 2026 (with copy-paste templates)

The platform is called X now, but I still type "twitter image sizes" into Google like it's 2019, and so does everyone else. The name changed, the bird left, the pixel dimensions mostly stayed put. What got worse is how trustworthy the results are. A lot of the pages that rank slapped a 2026 headline on a table they last touched when summary cards worked differently, and the old numbers are still sitting in there. So I built the version I trust: every current Twitter/X dimension in one place, click a number to copy it, grab a template if you'd rather start from the right rectangle than measure one. It's the Twitter/X slice of the full social media image size guide, which does the same for every other network.

The thing that bites people on X is the header. You design a clean 1500x500 banner, upload it, and your profile photo plants itself in the lower-left while a chunk gets shaved off the top and bottom depending on whose screen it lands on. Your logo ends up half behind your own face. So this is the numbers plus where X quietly crops them after you hit upload.

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

Twitter/X header size (1500 x 500) and profile photo

The profile photo is 400 x 400 and X masks it to a circle, so anything in the corners is gone. Center your face or your mark and leave a little room around it. Minimum is 200 square, but 400 is the floor that still looks sharp on a retina screen, and the cap is 2 MB so you don't have a lot of headroom for a huge file anyway.

The header is 1500 x 500, a 3:1 strip behind your photo, and it's the one people get wrong over and over. Some folks call it the banner, same thing, it's the wide image sitting behind your avatar. Two things hit it at once. Roughly 60 pixels get clipped off the top and bottom, and the exact amount shifts with the browser and monitor, so nothing near those edges is safe. Your profile photo also sits over the lower-left corner, and on mobile your name and bio overlay the bottom. A logo or tagline down in the bottom-left ends up hidden behind your own avatar. Keep the important stuff in the center band and the upper-right, and treat the lower-left as dead space.

Feed posts: pick your crop on purpose

Most of X happens in the feed on a phone, so how much vertical space you take matters. A single in-stream image runs true 16:9. I upload the landscape one at 1600 x 900 when I want it crisp, and 1200 x 675 is the lighter version of the same crop when file size matters more than resolution.

To hold more of the screen as someone scrolls, go square at 1080 x 1080 or portrait at 1080 x 1350 (4:5). Portrait takes up the most room in the mobile feed, which is the whole point of using it. Landscape reads fine, it's just smaller in the timeline, so I reach for it less than I used to.

You can attach up to 4 images in one post and X auto-arranges them into a preset grid. Design each tile at 16:9, around 1200 x 675, and it holds up across the two, three, and four-image layouts. The catch is that X crops each tile to fit, so keep your subject centered in every image you're stacking.

Link shares and cards

When you share a link, X pulls a preview from the page's twitter:image tag (it falls back to og:image if that's missing). The big one is the summary card with large image at 1200 x 628, 1.91:1, which is what you want for almost every link. There's also a small summary card thumbnail at 144 x 144 for the compact layout. Control the page and you control the thumbnail. Leave it blank and X grabs whatever it finds, usually the wrong thing. This surface is less about uploading an image and more about not letting X pick one for you.

Ads, if you're running them

The ad sizes overlap the organic ones but the file limits get stricter. Standalone image ads run square 1200 x 1200 and landscape 1200 x 628, both capped at 5 MB. Website cards and carousel cards are smaller, 800 x 800 or 800 x 418, capped at 3 MB, and every card in a carousel has to share one aspect ratio or X rejects the set. Square is usually my default for paid because it holds the most attention on mobile without going full vertical.

File sizes and formats, quick version

Keep feed images under 5 MB and they'll load clean, though X allows bigger photos on web than on the mobile app, so if a big PNG bounces on your phone try it from the browser. Profile photos cap at 2 MB, ad cards at 3 MB. JPG and PNG cover almost everything: PNG when there's text or sharp edges in the frame, JPG when it's a photo and you want a smaller file. GIF works for posts and for the profile photo if you want a little motion, but I'd think twice before putting an animated avatar on a profile you're using for work. That's a choice.

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 Twitter/X surface at the exact upload size, named so you know which is which, with the safe area and crop marks drawn right on the canvas. The header one shows you exactly where the avatar covers and where the top and bottom shave off. Drop one into Figma or Photoshop as a reference layer and design on top of it. The whole pack zips up in one click.

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

If you're posting the same image to more than one network, the LinkedIn image sizes page and the Facebook image sizes page run the exact same tool for those crops, so you can size every surface from one set of templates.

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.