Resize photos for Instagram
Your files are processed on your device. We never upload them.
HEIC photos are decoded with libheif, under the GNU LGPL.
How to resize photos for Instagram
- 01A ▸Choose your photos, or drop them on the page. JPG, PNG, HEIC, and more work.
- 02A ▸Pick the size, such as Portrait post (4:5) or Story or Reel cover (9:16).
- 03A ▸Fill the frame, or show the whole picture with a white, black, or blurred border.
- 04A ▸Select Resize for Instagram and download.
About Instagram sizes
The limit
Instagram keeps photos at most 1080 pixels wide. Feed posts can be anything from landscape 1.91:1 (1080 × 566) to portrait 4:5 (1080 × 1350), and the profile grid shows posts as 3:4 tiles. Stories and Reels fill a phone screen at 9:16 (1080 × 1920). Anything outside these shapes is cropped by the app, often cutting off heads or text.
How the tool gets there
The photo is scaled so that it either covers the whole frame (anything that spills over is cropped evenly from both sides) or fits inside it (the space around is filled with white, black, or a blurred copy of the photo). It is drawn at exactly the frame's size, shrinking in halves for sharpness, and saved as a high-quality JPG, which Instagram takes without converting.
Measured
Our own sample photos (a generated photo of sky, hills, and fine grain), in Chrome on a laptop, timed from Resize to the finished JPG. Phone timings are still to be measured.
| 12 MP JPG, 4:5 post, whole with a blurred border | 1080 × 1350, 69 KB, 0.2 s |
|---|---|
| 12 MP JPG, square post, filled | 1080 × 1080, 78 KB, 0.2 s |
| 12 MP JPG, story, whole with a white border | 1080 × 1920, 67 KB, 0.2 s |
| 12 MP iPhone HEIC, 4:5 post, filled | 1080 × 1350, 99 KB, 0.8 s (HEIC decoder included) |
| 48 MP iPhone HEIC, 4:5 post, filled | 1080 × 1350, 61 KB, 1.9 s |
If it doesn't fit
- Very wide panoramas shown whole become a thin strip. Fill with a Landscape post instead, or split the panorama into a carousel.
- If the photo is smaller than 1080 pixels wide, it is enlarged to fit and may look soft. Use the original photo from your camera roll rather than a screenshot.
Other options
- Resize image: for any other exact size, keeping the shape.
- Compress image to 1 MB: for sites with a file size limit rather than a shape.
- HEIC to JPG: to convert iPhone photos without changing their shape.
Questions
Are my photos uploaded?
No. Your files are processed on your device. We never upload them.
How do I post a whole photo without Instagram cropping it?
Choose Show the whole picture. The photo is placed in the middle of the frame at full width or height, with a border filling the rest, so Instagram has nothing to crop.
Which size gets the most space in the feed?
Portrait posts (4:5, 1080 × 1350) take up the most height in the feed. Instagram's profile grid now shows posts as tall 3:4 tiles, so Tall post (1080 × 1440) keeps the whole picture visible in the grid too.
Why 1080 pixels wide?
Instagram stores photos at most 1080 pixels wide and shrinks bigger ones itself. Sending exactly 1080 keeps you in control of how the photo is sharpened and cropped.
What does the blurred border look like?
A softly blurred, slightly darkened copy of the same photo fills the space around it, the look many apps use for "no crop" posts.
Can I do a whole carousel at once?
Yes. Choose all the photos; each is resized the same way, so the carousel lines up, and you can download them as a zip.