Upload a photo at the wrong size and social apps will crop off someone’s head, add blurry borders, or squash it into a low-quality copy. Resizing it yourself first gives you control over how it looks. Here are the sizes that work and how to get there.
Size and shape: two different things
An image’s size is its width and height in pixels, like 1080 × 1350. Its shape, or aspect ratio, is the relationship between them, like 4:5. Apps mostly care about shape. If the shape is wrong, they crop. If the size is too big, they shrink it, sometimes with heavy compression.
Sizes that work well
| Where | Size (pixels) | Shape |
|---|---|---|
| Instagram square post | 1080 × 1080 | 1:1 |
| Instagram portrait post | 1080 × 1350 | 4:5 |
| Instagram and WhatsApp stories | 1080 × 1920 | 9:16 |
| Facebook and LinkedIn link image | 1200 × 630 | About 1.9:1 |
| Profile photo (most apps) | 400 × 400 or larger | 1:1 |
| Full-width website banner | 1920 wide | Depends on the design |
| Image inside a blog post | 1200 wide | Any |
Apps change their layouts from time to time, so if something looks cropped, check the app’s own help page for its latest recommended size.
How to resize an image
- Open Resize Image.
- Add one photo or a whole batch.
- Choose Width and height and enter the width you need, for example 1080. Leave the height empty to keep the photo’s shape, so nothing gets stretched.
- Or choose Percentage to scale everything at once, for example 50% to halve the size.
- Click Resize images and download.
If you enter both a width and a height that don’t match the photo’s shape, the image will be stretched. To change the shape, crop the photo first in your phone’s gallery app, then resize.
Make it smaller without making it worse
- Only shrink, don’t enlarge. Making a small image bigger can’t add detail. It just looks blurry.
- Resize first, then compress. After resizing, run the image through Compress Image at around 70–80% quality. Most photos look identical and are much lighter.
- Use the right format. JPG for photos, PNG for graphics with text. Our guide JPG vs PNG vs WebP explains why.
- For websites, keep images under about 200 KB where possible. Faster pages keep visitors around and help your search ranking.
Quick recipe for a sharp Instagram post
- Crop the photo to 4:5 in your gallery app.
- Resize to 1080 pixels wide.
- Compress at 80% quality as JPG.
- Upload. The app has little reason to compress it further.