guides · 2026-10-30 · 2 min read
How to resize an image for Instagram, YouTube and more
every platform crops or squashes images that are the wrong shape. resizing to the right pixel size first means your photo looks the way you meant it to: no cut-off heads, no stretched faces, no blurry upscaling.
sizes that work
- instagram post (square): 1080×1080
- instagram post (portrait): 1080×1350, which takes up the most room in the feed
- instagram story or reel cover: 1080×1920
- youtube thumbnail: 1280×720 (16:9, under 2 mb)
- facebook and linkedin link image: 1200×630
- full hd: 1920×1080
resize in four steps
- open resize image and drop one or more images.
- pick a preset such as instagram post or youtube thumbnail, or type your own width and height.
- if the new shape is different from your photo, choose how to handle it (see below).
- choose png, jpg or webp and download, or get a zip for a batch.
ready-made pages: instagram, instagram story, youtube thumbnail and 1080p.
when the shape does not match
a phone photo is 4:3 or 3:4, but instagram wants 1:1 or 4:5 and stories want 9:16. you have four choices:
- fill and crop: fills the whole frame and trims the edges. best for most photos; use crop image first if you want to choose exactly what gets cut.
- fit with bars: shows the whole photo with plain bars around it. good for artwork and screenshots.
- fit without bars: keeps the shape and makes the image as big as possible inside the size.
- stretch: forces the size and distorts the image. almost never what you want.
keep it sharp
- go down in size, not up. enlarging a small image cannot add detail; it just looks soft.
- use jpg for photos and png for screenshots, logos and text. webp is smaller than both and works everywhere online.
- if a site has a file-size limit too, run the result through compress image.
many images at once
drop a whole folder of product photos or event pictures, choose one size and download a zip. all resizing happens in your browser, so even hundreds of photos are never uploaded.