Instagram video length limits

Instagram has two sets of length limits: what the app accepts when you post from your phone, and what Meta’s Content Publishing API accepts when a scheduling tool posts for you. The API figures come from Meta’s developer documentation. The app’s limits have been raised several times over the years, so check the date on any guide you rely on.

The columns part ways most for long reels. An 18-minute reel can go up from your phone, but no tool using the API can post it, because the API stops at 15 minutes.

Twenty minutes is how long a reel can be. The number that shapes most decisions is 3 minutes: Instagram’s help centre says reels over 3 minutes won’t be recommended to new audiences, so in practice a long reel is a video for your existing followers.

• To reach new people, keep the reel to 3:00 or less, and leave a few seconds of margin, say 2:55, so an edit or a rounding quirk never tips it over.
• For followers, such as a full tutorial or a recorded class, longer is fine, up to the 20-minute ceiling.
• For both, post a cut of 3 minutes or less to find new viewers and a full-length version for people who want the rest.
• Through a scheduler, the ceiling is 15 minutes, so anything longer has to go up from the app.

Tip: Instagram’s help centre also sets a floor for reel quality: at least 720 pixels and 30 frames per second. Long screen recordings saved at a low frame rate can fall below it, so check the export settings.

A single Story holds up to 60 seconds of video. Upload a longer clip in the app and it is cut into a run of Stories, one per minute; each piece shows as its own Story, and viewers can tap past any of them.

Scheduling tools get no such help. Through Meta’s API a Story video must last 3 to 60 seconds and weigh no more than 100 MB, so a 75-second clip is refused rather than split. Cut it into a 60-second and a 15-second piece yourself. Mind the leftovers: a 61-second clip would leave a 1-second piece, below the 3-second minimum, so trim it to 60 seconds instead.

Through the API, a file can hit its size cap long before its length limit. Meta allows video bitrates of up to 25 Mbps, but a reel file can’t exceed 300 MB and a Story video 100 MB, so a high-bitrate export runs out of room quickly.

Short clips can use a high bitrate; long ones can’t. For a 15-minute scheduled reel, set your editor to a target file size just under 300 MB, or to a total bitrate of about 2.4 Mbps, which leaves a little headroom for audio and the file’s own overhead.

A Live can run for up to 4 hours. For a longer event, plan a break and start a second broadcast. Lives aren’t part of Meta’s publishing API, so a scheduling tool can’t start one for you.

Video inside a carousel is the least documented case. Most guides give 60 seconds per video slide, but we found no Meta page that states it, so test a longer clip in the app before you plan a post around one.

Some guides still list 60 minutes for feed videos. That figure comes from Instagram’s older long-form video format; videos you share to the feed now go up as reels, so plan with the reel limits.