Instagram post sizes, and the one rule that keeps your design from being cropped
Instagram does not show one post one way. The same image is a tall rectangle in the feed, a slightly shorter one on the profile grid, a thumbnail in a carousel dot, and a full screen when someone taps it. Every size question is really a question about which of those views you are designing for and what you are willing to lose in the others.
This is the reference, current for September 2026, with the sizes dump's presets use so you never type a pixel count, what each view crops, and the export settings that keep text sharp after Instagram recompresses the file. Most of it reduces to one rule, which comes first.
The one rule: keep anything that matters inside the middle 3:4
Whatever shape you post, the profile grid shows a 3:4 crop of it and the feed shows the full height only for portrait posts. So the safe zone for a headline, a face or a product is a 3:4 rectangle centred on your design. A square gets its top and bottom trimmed on the grid; a 4:5 loses a sliver; a 3:4 post shows whole everywhere except in a square-cropped thumbnail. Design the important part into that centre and the rest is background.
dump's page grid has a centre overlay and a thirds overlay you can switch on while placing things, and the canvas presets already match the sizes below, so the rule is a habit, not arithmetic.
Canvas presets: free with an account. Exports are never watermarked.
Feed posts: portrait, square, landscape
- Portrait is the format that fills the most screen. Instagram accepts 4:5 (1080 by 1350) and, since 2025, 3:4 (1080 by 1440). dump's Instagram Post preset is 1080 by 1440, the taller of the two, and it is the size a new dump starts on. Use it for anything with a headline: the extra height is space for text without shrinking the photo.
- Square, 1080 by 1080, is a plain geometric option now rather than the house format. It works for a grid of nine that should read as one image, and for anything you will reuse on other platforms without re-cutting.
- Landscape, 1080 by 566 (1.91:1), is the smallest a post can appear in the feed. Reserve it for wide photos that lose their point when cropped, and expect it to be tiny on the grid.
Carousels: one size for every slide
Every slide in a carousel shares the first slide's aspect ratio; Instagram crops the rest to match. Decide the ratio before the first slide, not after. In dump a carousel is one wide artboard of 1080 by 1440 slides laid side by side, exported as one file per slide in order, which makes the seamless trick possible: a headline or a panorama that runs across the seams because you drew it on one continuous canvas. A carousel holds up to 5 photos on the free plan, 10 on Creator and 20 on Studio, which is Instagram's own limit.
Stories and Reels: 9:16, with the interface in the way
Stories, Reels and Reel covers are 1080 by 1920. The catch is the interface: the top of a story carries your avatar and the progress bar, the bottom carries the reply field, and a Reel has the caption and the buttons on the right. Keep text out of roughly the top and bottom 250 pixels and away from the right edge. A Reel cover is also shown as a 3:4 crop on the profile, so the rule from the top applies again: centre the title.
The same design elsewhere
TikTok photo posts are 3:4 (1080 by 1440, the TikTok Photo preset), TikTok video frames 9:16. Pinterest wants 2:3 (1000 by 1500). X posts show as 16:9 (1600 by 900). YouTube thumbnails are 1280 by 720. All of these are presets in dump's canvas picker, and there is a custom size up to 8000 pixels a side for anything else. Recutting a post for another platform by hand means moving every element; Magic Resize does it in one click on Studio, though it does not handle carousels yet. The follow-up guide on resizing one design for every platform covers what actually changes between ratios.
Exporting at a size that survives compression
Instagram recompresses everything and downsizes anything wider than 1080 pixels. So the target is exactly the preset size at good quality, not the biggest file you can make. In dump, a signed out export is SD, which downscales to 720 on the long edge and will look soft after Instagram's pass; a free account exports at the canvas's native size, which is the right choice for the feed. 2K on Creator and 4K on Studio matter for print, wallpapers and anything shown on a screen larger than a phone, not for the feed.
- JPG for photos and photo-heavy designs: smaller file, and Instagram will re-encode it as JPG anyway.
- PNG when the design has flat colour, thin text or transparency you want to keep in the file; Instagram flattens it, but the source stays sharp for other uses.
- PDF for a multi-page document that someone needs to approve before it goes anywhere.
- No plan adds a watermark, so the file you download is the file you post.
- 1Start from the preset, not a blank size
New dump, Instagram Post for portrait, Story for 9:16, Square only if you mean it. The canvas is already the right pixel size.
- 2Switch on the centre or thirds grid
Page settings, grid overlay. Keep faces, products and headlines inside the middle 3:4.
- 3Crop photos in place
Crop mode shows the whole source and dims the outside; inside a slot the photo pans and zooms without leaving the frame.
- 4Check the grid view
Zoom out, imagine the 3:4 crop, and make sure the post still says its one thing.
- 5Export at HD with a free account
JPG for photos, PNG for flat graphics. One file per slide for a carousel, uploaded in order.
Export (PNG, JPG, PDF): free, no account needed. Exports are never watermarked.
Frequently asked questions
A portrait post, either 1080 by 1350 (4:5) or 1080 by 1440 (3:4, accepted since 2025). Portrait fills the most screen in the feed. dump's Instagram Post preset is 1080 by 1440, and a free account exports it at that native size, which is what Instagram wants.
All slides take the first slide's aspect ratio, so pick portrait, square or landscape before slide one. dump builds carousels as 1080 by 1440 slides on one wide artboard and exports one file per slide. Free accounts get up to 5 slides, Creator 10 and Studio 20.
The profile grid shows every post as a 3:4 rectangle regardless of the shape you uploaded. A square loses its top and bottom, a 4:5 loses a little, a 3:4 shows whole. Keep the important part of the design inside a centred 3:4 area and it will survive the grid.
1080 by 1920 pixels, a 9:16 ratio. Keep text away from roughly the top and bottom 250 pixels, where the story interface sits, and away from the right edge on Reels where the buttons are. A Reel cover is additionally shown as a 3:4 crop on the profile.