Social media platforms don't serve your images as you upload them. Every platform re-compresses, resizes, strips metadata, and sometimes converts format. Instagram converts PNG uploads to JPEG. Twitter converts large PNGs to JPEG. Facebook re-encodes everything. Understanding this pipeline is the difference between crisp social posts and blurry, artifacted ones.
This guide gives you the exact dimensions, formats, and optimization strategies for each major platform as of March 2026. The numbers come from platform documentation and real-world testing — not recycled 2022 specs.
Need to prepare images? Convert PNG to JPG for photo uploads, or JPG to PNG when you need text clarity in graphics.
Feed Posts
Square: 1080 x 1080 px (1:1 ratio). The classic Instagram format. Still works well but lower engagement than portrait.
Portrait: 1080 x 1350 px (4:5 ratio). Takes up more screen real estate in the feed, leading to higher engagement. This is the recommended default for most feed content.
Landscape: 1080 x 566 px (1.91:1 ratio). Uses less vertical space in the feed. Lower engagement than portrait. Only use when the composition requires it.
Carousel: Same dimensions as single posts. Up to 20 slides. Mix photos and videos. All slides in a carousel must use the same aspect ratio — the first slide's ratio sets it for all.
Format behavior: Instagram converts all uploads to JPEG internally, regardless of what you upload. PNG text graphics get JPEG-compressed, which introduces artifacts around sharp text. To minimize this: upload PNG at the exact display dimensions (don't let Instagram resize) and keep file size under 1MB (Instagram compresses more aggressively on larger files).
Stories and Reels
Stories: 1080 x 1920 px (9:16 ratio). Full vertical screen. Images display for 5 seconds by default.
Reels cover: 1080 x 1920 px (9:16), but the thumbnail in the grid is cropped to 1080 x 1350 (4:5). Design your cover image so the key content fits within the center 1080x1350 region.
Profile picture: 320 x 320 px. Displayed at 110x110 in the feed, 150x150 on profile. Upload at 320x320 minimum.
X (Twitter)
Timeline Images
Single image: 1600 x 900 px (16:9 ratio) is optimal. Twitter displays images at varying aspect ratios and crops them in the timeline. The 16:9 ratio avoids unexpected cropping. Maximum file size: 5MB for photos, 5MB for animated GIF.
Multiple images: 2 images: each 700x800. 3 images: one 700x800 + two 600x400. 4 images: four 600x400. Twitter crops to fit the grid layout.
Format behavior: Twitter converts PNGs to JPEG if the file exceeds ~900KB. To keep PNG format (important for screenshots and text-heavy graphics), keep file size under 900KB or use PNG with fewer colors (indexed PNG). JPEGs are re-encoded at Twitter's chosen quality level regardless of your upload quality.
Pro tip: Twitter's JPEG re-compression is less aggressive on images under 700KB. Upload your JPEG at quality 92-95 and let Twitter's compressor handle the final optimization rather than uploading heavily compressed images that get compressed again.
Link Cards (Summary Cards)
Summary card with large image: 1200 x 675 px (roughly 16:9). This is the og:image that appears when sharing a link. If your image is smaller than 300x157, Twitter falls back to a small thumbnail card.
Summary card (small): 120 x 120 px minimum, displayed as a small square. Used when no large image is specified.
Header image: 1500 x 500 px (3:1 ratio). Profile banner.
Feed Posts and Shared Links
Shared link image (og:image): 1200 x 630 px (1.91:1 ratio). This is the most important Facebook image dimension — it determines how link shares look in the feed.
Photo post: Upload at the highest quality available. Facebook's feed displays images at approximately 500px wide on desktop, but serves higher resolution to Retina displays. Upload at minimum 1200px wide. Facebook accepts JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, WebP, and HEIF.
Cover photo: 820 x 312 px on desktop, 640 x 360 px on mobile. Design for both crops — the mobile version is taller and narrower than desktop.
Format behavior: Facebook re-encodes everything to JPEG at a quality level it chooses. For text-heavy images (infographics, quote graphics), upload as PNG at exact display dimensions — Facebook's PNG-to-JPEG conversion is less destructive than JPEG-to-JPEG re-encoding. Facebook strips all EXIF data including GPS.
Shared article/link image: 1200 x 627 px (1.91:1 ratio). Nearly identical to Facebook's og:image dimensions.
Feed image post: 1200 x 1200 (square) or 1080 x 1350 (portrait). LinkedIn now supports both aspect ratios in the feed. Portrait takes up more space, similar to Instagram's engagement advantage.
Company page cover: 1128 x 191 px.
Profile banner: 1584 x 396 px.
Format behavior: LinkedIn accepts JPEG, PNG, and GIF. It re-compresses all uploads. PNG uploads maintain better text clarity than JPEG uploads, so use PNG for infographics, data visualizations, and any image with readable text. LinkedIn's image re-compression is notoriously aggressive — upload at the highest quality you have.
TikTok
Video cover image / photo post: 1080 x 1920 px (9:16 ratio). TikTok is vertical-first. Photo carousels (introduced in 2023) use this same dimension.
Profile photo: 200 x 200 px minimum.
Photo carousel: 1080 x 1920 px per slide. Up to 35 images per carousel. TikTok applies its own filters and transitions. Upload high-quality JPEG or PNG — TikTok re-compresses aggressively.
YouTube
Video thumbnail: 1280 x 720 px (16:9 ratio). Maximum file size: 2MB. Accepted formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP. Thumbnails are displayed at various sizes across YouTube (default, maxres, standard, medium), so design for readability at 320x180 (the small preview size).
Channel banner: 2560 x 1440 px. The safe area (visible on all devices) is the center 1546 x 423 px. Outside that region is cropped differently on TV, desktop, and mobile.
Thumbnail optimization: Use JPEG for photo-based thumbnails, PNG for text-heavy and graphic thumbnails. YouTube's re-compression on JPEG thumbnails is moderate. High-contrast text at 40-60pt renders well even after compression. Avoid thin fonts and low-contrast text — they become unreadable after YouTube's re-encoding.
Standard pin: 1000 x 1500 px (2:3 ratio). This is the optimal aspect ratio for the Pinterest grid — tall images take up more space and get more visibility. Avoid going taller than 2:3; Pinterest truncates very long images in the feed.
Square pin: 1000 x 1000 px. Takes up less grid space than 2:3. Use for specific content types that work better square.
Idea pins (multi-page): 1080 x 1920 px (9:16) per page. Up to 20 pages.
Format behavior: Pinterest accepts JPEG, PNG, GIF, and WebP. It re-encodes uploads but is less aggressive than Instagram or LinkedIn. PNG uploads of graphic content maintain good quality. Pinterest is one of the better platforms for image quality preservation.
Upload Strategy: Fighting Re-Compression
Every platform re-compresses your images. The question is how to minimize quality loss when your image gets compressed again by the platform.
General Rules
Upload at the exact display dimensions. If the platform displays images at 1080px wide, upload at 1080px wide (or 2x for Retina). Uploading a 4000px image means the platform resizes it (quality loss) before re-compressing it (more quality loss). Two lossy operations are worse than one.
JPEG quality 90-95 for photos. Upload higher quality than you'd use for your own website. The platform will compress it further — starting from 95 and ending at 75 after platform compression looks better than starting at 80 and ending at 60.
PNG for text and graphics. Platform JPEG re-compression creates visible artifacts around text edges. PNG uploads get converted to JPEG too, but the single conversion from clean PNG source produces fewer artifacts than JPEG-to-JPEG re-encoding.
Don't sharpen before upload. Platform re-compression and resizing interact badly with pre-sharpened images, creating haloed edges. Let the platform's pipeline handle the final state of the image.
Retina/High-DPI Strategy
Most modern phones have 2x or 3x pixel density. An image displayed at 500px on a 2x screen uses 1000 physical pixels. If you only upload 500px of data, the display upscales it — making it look blurry.
Upload at 2x the display size when the platform allows it. Instagram displays feed images at 1080px wide on phones with 1080px-wide screens (already 1:1 at 2-3x), so 1080px uploads are sufficient. Twitter displays at ~506px, so a 1012px upload is sufficient (but wider images load fine).
This matters most for text-heavy graphics. Blurry body text at 1x on a 3x screen is unreadable. The same text at 2x is crisp.
Quick Reference Table
| Platform | Primary Dimensions | Best Format | Max File Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram Feed | 1080 x 1350 (4:5) | JPEG 92+ | ~30MB |
| Instagram Stories | 1080 x 1920 (9:16) | JPEG/PNG | ~30MB |
| X/Twitter | 1600 x 900 (16:9) | PNG <900KB or JPEG 95 | 5MB |
| 1200 x 630 (link) / 1200+ (photo) | PNG for graphics, JPEG for photos | 10MB | |
| 1200 x 627 (link) / 1200 x 1200 (post) | PNG for graphics | 10MB | |
| TikTok | 1080 x 1920 (9:16) | JPEG/PNG | ~20MB |
| YouTube Thumbnail | 1280 x 720 (16:9) | JPEG or PNG | 2MB |
| 1000 x 1500 (2:3) | JPEG/PNG | 20MB |
Social media image optimization is a game of surviving re-compression. You can't prevent platforms from degrading your images, but you can minimize the damage by uploading the right dimensions, the right format, and at high enough quality that the platform's compression still produces acceptable results.
Prepare your images with ChangeThisFile: PNG to JPG for photo uploads, JPG to PNG for text-heavy graphics, WebP to JPG for platform compatibility, and HEIC to JPG for iPhone photos that need uploading from a desktop browser.