Instagram landscape post size

Instagram’s help centre accepts feed photos in any shape from 1.91:1 to 3:4. The whole landscape side of that range, from a square out to 1.91:1, shows in full in the feed, so a sideways photo rarely needs cropping at all. Because Instagram keeps photos at up to 1,080 pixels wide, the shape decides only the height.

Guides disagree on which of these to call the landscape size. Hootsuite lists 1080 × 566, the widest shape Instagram keeps. Sprout Social lists 1920 × 1080, a 16:9 shape that Instagram scales down to 1080 × 608. Both post without cropping. Our advice: keep a photo in the shape it was taken, and reach for 1080 × 566 only when a design needs the widest frame, because every step wider makes the post shorter on screen.

The feed shows a landscape post whole; your profile grid doesn’t. Each tile is a 3:4 portrait, so the grid keeps the full height of a landscape post and only as much width as that tall shape allows, taken from the middle. Hootsuite’s guide notes that every photo appears vertical on the grid, whatever its original orientation.

Hootsuite gives the grid view of a landscape post as 1012 × 1350 and Sprout Social as 1080 × 1440. Both are 3:4 tile sizes rather than parts of your image: whatever the tile’s pixel size, it is filled from that narrow middle slice.

Tip: A group photo taken sideways loses the people at each end on the grid. Keep the main subject central, or open the post from your profile, choose Adjust preview in the three-dot menu and slide the tile to the part you want.

Instagram crops any photo wider than 1.91:1 to fit, so part of a panorama always goes. The wider it is, the more it loses: a 3:1 panorama keeps at most about 64% of its width, and a 4:1 panorama less than half. There are three ways round it, each with a cost.

• Crop it yourself to 1.91:1 and choose which ends go. Quick, but the result is still only 566 px tall at 1,080 px wide.
• Place the whole panorama on a taller canvas, such as 1080 × 1080, with plain bands above and below. Nothing is cut, but a 4:1 panorama ends up just 270 px tall inside the square.
• Split it across a carousel. A 3:1 panorama divides exactly into three 1080 × 1080 squares, and a 3.82:1 panorama into two 1080 × 566 slides, so each swipe moves along the view.

Tip: Before cutting a panorama into slides, nudge the cut lines so they fall on sky, water or a plain wall rather than on a person or a sign.

A carousel takes its shape from the first slide, and every later slide is cropped to match. A landscape opener is therefore costly for whatever follows it: cropped to 1.91:1, a 4:5 portrait keeps only 566 of its 1,350 px of height, about 42%, and a 3:4 phone photo keeps 39%.

If a set mixes shapes, open with a portrait or a square and pad the landscape shots onto that shape yourself, with bands above and below, so they keep their full width. A carousel that is landscape from start to finish, such as a run of 16:9 slides from a presentation, loses nothing.

Videos shared to the feed go up as reels, and Instagram’s help centre accepts reels in any shape from 1.91:1 to 9:16 and says they should have a minimum resolution of 720 pixels and a minimum frame rate of 30 frames per second. A 16:9 clip from a camera or a screen recording sits inside that range, so it uploads in its own shape.

Meta still recommends 9:16 for reels, because they play on a tall phone screen. A landscape clip can’t fill that frame without heavy cropping, so expect it to play as a band across the middle with empty space above and below. Keep landscape for footage where the width matters, and reframe the rest to vertical.

Scheduling tools add one more limit. Meta’s API takes reel video up to 1,920 pixels wide, so a 4K landscape export at 3840 × 2160 needs a 1920 × 1080 copy first.

1. Choose the shape first. Keep a photo in its own 3:2 or 4:3 shape, and use 1080 × 566 only for designs that need the widest frame.
2. Export at 1,080 px wide. Instagram reduces anything wider to 1,080, so extra width adds upload time and nothing else.
3. Keep faces, words and logos within the middle 40% of the width if the grid view matters to you.
4. Save as JPEG in sRGB. Meta’s API, which scheduling tools use, takes JPEG only, up to 8 MB, from 320 to 1,440 px wide.
5. After posting, look at the tile on your profile as well as the post in the feed.

Mistakes to avoid

• Cropping a 3:2 photo to 1.91:1 for no reason, which throws away about a fifth of its height.
• Setting a headline across the full width of a landscape graphic, then finding only its middle words on the grid.
• Posting a full-width screenshot from a 1920-pixel screen, where the text shrinks to just over half its size once Instagram scales it to 1,080 px.
• Leading a mixed carousel with a landscape photo, which crops every portrait slide behind it.