BorderPhotoAll toolsAdd a border
Tall crop with a tomato border — Instagram Sizes Without Cropping

Guide

Instagram sizes without cropping

Instagram stores a post in one of a few shapes, shows it in another in the profile grid, and crops anything that does not fit. Padding the photo to the right shape first is the only way to keep all of it.

The shapes, in pixels

A feed post may be anything from 1.91:1 wide to 4:5 tall. The width is 1080 pixels; the height follows the shape. Stories and reels are 9:16. Since 2025 the profile grid previews every post as a 3:4 slice, so even a correctly shaped 4:5 post loses a strip at each side in the grid.

Instagram outputs used on this site (third-party guide, checked 18 Oct 2026)
OutputPixelsNote
Feed portrait 4:51080 × 1350The recommended feed post. The profile grid previews a 3:4 slice of it.
Feed square 1:11080 × 1080A square post. The profile grid previews a 3:4 slice of it.
Feed landscape 1.91:11080 × 566The widest feed post.
Story or reel 9:161080 × 1920Keep text out of the shaded bands: the app draws its own controls there (top 14 %, bottom 20 %).
Feed 3:41080 × 1440Accepted when posted by hand; scheduled posts through the API need 4:5 or wider.

Padding instead of cropping

A 3:4 phone photo, 3024 × 4032, is taller than 4:5. Cropping keeps 3024 × 3780 and throws away 252 pixels. Padding keeps every pixel: the photo is scaled to fit inside 1080 × 1350 with a margin, and the space left at the sides is filled — white, a colour from the photo, or a blurred copy of the photo itself, which is the least conspicuous.

With a 4 % margin the photo is drawn at 932 × 1242 and centred; the grid’s 3:4 slice, about 1013 pixels wide, still contains all of it. The studio draws the slice lines and the story bands on the preview so this can be checked before saving; they are never written into the file.

Questions

Why does Instagram crop my photo?

A feed post can be at most 4:5 tall and 1.91:1 wide. A taller phone photo (3:4 or 9:16) is cropped to 4:5, and the profile grid then shows only a 3:4 slice of each post. Padding the photo to 4:5 before posting means there is nothing left for the app to cut.

What size should I upload?

1080 × 1350 pixels for a portrait post is the size third-party guides recommend in 2026; 1080 × 1080 for square and 1080 × 1920 for stories. Larger files are scaled down by the app anyway. Confirm current sizes in Instagram's own help pages.

Does padding work for stories?

Yes: a 9:16 canvas with the photo contained inside and a blur behind it. Keep text out of the top 14 % and bottom 20 %, where the app draws its own controls.

Back to the measuring surface