How to resize a photo for social media
Upload the wrong shape and the platform crops it for you, sometimes badly. Here are the sizes that matter and how to hit them.
Why the platform's own crop is worth avoiding
Instagram, Discord, LinkedIn and most other platforms will accept almost any photo, but if its proportions don't match what the platform expects, they crop it automatically, often centred, which can cut off a face at the edge of a group photo or leave a subject off-centre. Cropping it yourself first, to the platform's actual target size, keeps the framing you intended.
The sizes that matter
The exact numbers vary a little as platforms update their apps, but these cover almost every case:
- Instagram feed post: 1:1 square (1080×1080) or 4:5 portrait (1080×1350), which shows more of a tall photo in the feed without cropping.
- Instagram Story or Reel: 9:16 portrait (1080×1920), filling the full vertical screen.
- Discord and most forum avatars: square, at least 128×128, though a larger square (512×512 or more) looks sharp on high-DPI screens.
- LinkedIn and most profile pictures: square, at least 400×400.
- A cover photo or banner (Facebook, LinkedIn, X): a wide rectangle, typically at least 1500 px wide; check the specific platform, since these change more often than the others.
Resizing on a phone or computer
Stayput's resize for Instagram preset offers the 4:5, square and 9:16 crops directly, letting you position the crop before saving so the important part of the photo stays in frame. For a plain square, for Discord, LinkedIn or any other profile picture, crop to square does the same with a 1:1 frame you can drag over any part of the photo. Both run in your browser: no upload, no account, and the photo is exported at full resolution rather than whatever the platform's own cropper produces.
A couple of things that catch people out
Round profile pictures (most platforms display them in a circle) still need a square source image; the platform masks the corners itself, so cropping to a circle yourself is unnecessary and can leave transparent corners where none are expected. And Instagram's minimum resolution is lower than it looks: 1080px wide covers virtually every device, so exporting a much larger image just adds file size without a visible improvement.
Questions
What is the best size for an Instagram post in 2026?
1080×1080 for a square post, or 1080×1350 (4:5) to show more of a portrait photo without Instagram cropping it further.
Why did Discord crop my profile picture oddly?
Discord expects a square image and centre-crops anything else. Cropping to a square yourself, keeping the subject centred, avoids that.
Does resizing a photo lower its quality?
Cropping alone does not resample the kept pixels. Scaling a photo down loses some detail, though usually not visibly for web and app use; scaling up cannot add detail that was not there originally.
Can I resize a photo without uploading it to Instagram's own tools?
Yes. A browser-based cropping tool produces the exact size before you ever open Instagram, and the photo never leaves your device to do it.