Every platform recompresses what you upload — and it does so with less care than you would. Upload an oversized image and the platform's encoder decides how to mangle it; upload one that's already the right dimensions and reasonably compressed, and it mostly passes through untouched. That's the real reason to resize for each platform: you keep control of how your image looks.
Prep any image for any platform: cap the max dimension, set a file size target, compress — one pass in the browser.
Resize & compressCurrent dimensions by platform
| Platform | Use | Dimensions (px) |
|---|---|---|
| Feed square | 1080 × 1080 | |
| Feed portrait | 1080 × 1350 | |
| Story / Reels cover | 1080 × 1920 | |
| Profile photo | 320 × 320 (uploads at 1080) | |
| TikTok | Video cover | 1080 × 1920 |
| YouTube | Thumbnail | 1280 × 720 (16:9) |
| YouTube | Channel art | 2560 × 1440 (safe area 1546 × 423) |
| X (Twitter) | Single image | 1600 × 900 (16:9) |
| X (Twitter) | Header | 1500 × 500 |
| Link / feed image | 1200 × 630 | |
| Cover | 851 × 315 (desktop) | |
| Post image | 1200 × 627 | |
| Banner | 1584 × 396 | |
| Standard pin | 1000 × 1500 (2:3) |
Platforms adjust these occasionally; treat the table as the 2026 baseline and verify the odd dimension (covers, banners) if a crop looks wrong.
File size targets for uploads
Platforms enforce limits that are generous on paper but stingy in practice:
- Instagram: recommends ≤ 8 MB per image — but images that big sit in a recompression queue. 500 KB–1 MB at 1080 px is visually identical and processes instantly.
- YouTube thumbnails: hard cap 2 MB. 1280×720 WebP/JPG at 200–400 KB is well under and looks crisp.
- X: 5 MB per image; under 1 MB keeps the encoder from re-crushing your file.
- LinkedIn: 5 MB; posts with leaner images render faster in-feed.
The workflow
- Crop your image to the platform's aspect ratio in any editor (or the platform itself).
- In the JpegDiet compressor, set "Max dimensions" to the platform's width (e.g. 1080 px).
- Set target size to 500 KB (or 200 KB for thumbnails).
- Choose JPG for photos (most platforms re-encode to JPEG anyway) — WebP works on all major platforms in 2026.
- Download and upload the lean file.
Two pitfalls that ruin quality
Uploading far above spec. A 4000-px upload squeezed to 1080 by the platform gets whatever downsampling their pipeline uses — often sharper lines get aliased. Pre-resizing at high quality avoids their dice roll.
Text inside images. Platforms' recompression smears small text on busy backgrounds. If your graphic is text-heavy, compress conservatively (higher quality / larger file) or test and adjust — text artifacts are the first visible casualty of aggressive compression.