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- The size of your Instagram post will vary depending on how you upload the photo or video.
- A standard Instagram post should be shaped like a perfect 1:1 square, but Stories are shaped like a phone screen.
- You can edit the size of your photos in Instagram, or through your phone's Photos app.
- Visit Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.
Instagram is very particular when it comes to the size of your photos. It's not like Facebook, where you can upload any sort of picture and then just tap to enlarge it – if a photo you post on Instagram gets cropped weirdly, whole chunks of it will get deleted.
But while this does mean that you have to be precise when editing your photos for Instagram, it also means that it's easy to predict what your photos will look like once uploaded.
Every kind of Instagram post has an exact aspect ratio that works best for it. Here's a full guide to Instagram's post size requirements, and how to edit your photos to match them.
What size should your Instagram posts be?
There are a few different places to post pictures on Instagram, and each takes a different size of photo.
But when we talk about size, how many pixels they have is less important than their aspect ratio. An aspect ratio is a number that compares how wide a picture is to how tall it is.
For example, a square is in a 1:1 aspect ratio because it's exactly as wide as it is tall. Most TVs, meanwhile, are 16:9 - almost twice as wide as they are tall.
Here are the most important ratios on Instagram.
Regular Instagram posts
By default, standard Instagram posts are perfectly square - they're in a 1:1 aspect ratio. If you're looking for a specific resolution, shoot for 1080 x 1080 pixels (px).
If the picture you're uploading isn't a square, you can tap a button to zoom out. A landscape (horizontal) photo should be in a 1.91:1 ratio, and a portrait (vertical) photo should be a 4:5 ratio. Their resolutions should be 1080 x 608 px and 1080 x 1350 px, respectively.
Videos work the same way as photos, and use the same ratios.
William Antonelli/Insider
Instagram Story posts
Unlike regular posts, Instagram Stories can take up your entire vertical phone screen. This means that they should be a 9:16 ratio, or 1080 x 1920 px.
IGTV and Reels video posts
Just like Stories, Instagram Reels and IGTV posts are meant to take up the entire screen. Post them in a 9:16 ratio, or 1080 x 1920 px.
The difference is that IGTV and Reels posts can also show up on your feed or profile. When an IGTV or Reels video appears in your feed, it'll be cropped into a 4:5 ratio - you need to tap it to expand it. And on your profile, it'll show up as a 1:1 square.
When uploading an IGTV video, you'll also be asked for a cover photo. This cover should have a 1:1.55 ratio, or 420 x 654 px.
In all these cases, it means that you should keep the video's most important text or content near the center of the screen so it doesn't get cut off.
William Antonelli/Insider
Your Instagram profile picture
While it's not the same as a public post, your Instagram profile picture needs to fit a certain ratio too.
Like normal posts, you should upload a perfect 1:1 square as your profile picture. But unlike posts, it doesn't need to have a high resolution - you can keep it at 360 x 360 px.
How to resize your photos for Instagram
Most people don't take perfectly square photos (although most high-end phones have a setting for it). This means that if you want to post your photos on Instagram, you should crop them.
There are a few ways to resize your photos to make them fit on Instagram. Of course, there are hundreds of apps that offer exact size templates - for example, you can use a free site like Canva or a premium suite like Adobe Spark.
But Instagram has its own photo editor. When you try to upload a photo to the Instagram app from your phone's camera roll, you can crop it into a square or rectangle right from the selection screen.
And if you want a more private cropping experience, head to your camera roll app directly. Both the iPhone Photos app and Android Google Photos app let you crop your photos into the ratios needed for Instagram posts. You can also freeform crop them to fit the ratios manually.
Instagram; William Antonelli/Insider