Social Media Image Size Reference
Current image dimensions for eight platforms — posts, stories, covers and thumbnails — with the safe zones that stop text being cropped off.
X (Twitter)
YouTube
TikTok
Twitch
There is no one image for everything
A centre crop only ever cares about shape, never about size: whichever side is proportionally too long gets trimmed, so the surviving share is the smaller aspect over the larger one. That also makes the loss symmetric — fitting 16:9 into 9:16 costs exactly what the reverse costs.
The 31 placements below run from LinkedIn's Company cover at 5.91:1 down to a 0.563:1 story — a 10.5-fold spread of shapes. Ask which single aspect ratio survives all of them best and the answer has a closed form: the one that minimises the worst crop is the geometric mean of the two extremes, because minimising the largest distance to the ends of an interval puts you at its midpoint, and on a ratio scale the midpoint is the geometric mean. That is 1.82:1 — and even it throws away 69.1% of the picture at the extremes. Nothing does better. The nice part is where that lands: 16:9 is within 0.8 of a point of the theoretical optimum, so an ordinary screenshot is very nearly the best compromise shape available.
Ask for the smallest average crop instead and you get a different answer, which is worth knowing before trusting any single recommendation. It is a perfect square — 32.9% average against the 1.82:1 shape's 36.1% — but a square is dreadful at its worst, losing 83.1% to a full-height story. The reason a square wins on average is not subtle once you count: 10 of the 31 placements already are one, because every profile photo on every platform is 1:1. That same duplication is why 31 rows hold only 16 genuinely different shapes.
For reference: a 4:3 phone photo loses 77.4% at its worst placement and 36.4% on average; a 16:9 frame loses 69.9% and 35.7%. An image of 2560 × 1920 is the smallest that fills every placement here without being enlarged. Aspect ratios are far more stable than pixel counts — platforms tweak the latter and rarely touch the former. Pair this with the Image Cropper or Compressor.
How to use
- Find your platform and image type.
- Note the dimensions and aspect ratio.
- Keep important content inside the safe zone.
- Check the platform's own guidance, which changes.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my image get cropped differently in the feed?
Because platforms show a preview at a fixed aspect ratio and crop to fit, often from the centre. An image that looks right when opened can lose its top and bottom in the feed, which is why the safe zone matters more than the full dimensions.
What is a safe zone?
The central region guaranteed to survive cropping across the places an image appears. Keeping text, faces and logos inside it means the image works in the feed, in a preview card and on a profile, rather than only in the version you designed.
Should I upload larger than the stated size?
Generally yes, at the same aspect ratio. Platforms downscale, and downscaling produces better results than upscaling. There are upload limits, and very large files may be compressed harder — so twice the stated dimensions is usually a sensible ceiling.
Why does my image look worse after uploading?
Because platforms recompress everything to manage bandwidth. You cannot prevent it, but you can reduce the damage: upload at the right dimensions so no resizing is needed, avoid fine detail and thin text, and prefer formats the platform handles well. Sharp text and gradients suffer most.
How often do these sizes change?
Often enough that any published table dates. Platforms revise layouts regularly and rarely announce dimension changes prominently. Where an image matters, the platform's own current guidance is the authority — this page is a convenient starting point rather than a permanent reference.
Does one image work everywhere?
Not well. Aspect ratios differ substantially between a square feed post, a vertical story and a wide cover, and forcing one image into all of them means bad crops somewhere. Designing the important content into a central square gives the best chance across formats.
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