Social Media Image & Video Specs 2026: Complete Size Guide

The definitive 2026 reference for image dimensions, video resolutions, aspect ratios, and file formats across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X (Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Published February 25, 2026 · Updated February 25, 2026

Every social media platform reprocesses your uploads. Instagram recompresses your photos. TikTok re-encodes your video. YouTube generates multiple resolution variants from your original. The file you upload is never the file your audience sees — it's a degraded copy, run through the platform's own compression pipeline.

This means the dimensions, format, and quality of what you upload matters enormously. Upload a 600px-wide photo to Instagram, and the platform stretches it to 1080px, turning subtle details into a smeared mess. Upload a 4K video to TikTok when the platform caps playback at 1080p, and you've wasted upload time and bandwidth while the re-encoding process makes quality decisions you can't control. Upload in the wrong aspect ratio, and the platform either crops your content or pads it with black bars, killing engagement.

The solution is straightforward: give each platform exactly what it wants. Upload at the correct dimensions, in the right format, at high quality, and the platform's reprocessing does minimal damage. This guide is your reference sheet for getting that right across every major platform in 2026.

Instagram

Instagram is the most particular about image dimensions of any major platform. It supports three aspect ratios for feed posts, has its own vertical format for Stories and Reels, and recompresses everything aggressively. Getting the specs right here makes the biggest visible difference.

Image Specs

Pro tip: Portrait (1080 x 1350) posts occupy roughly 20% more screen space in the feed than square posts. If you want maximum visual impact and higher engagement rates, portrait is the format to use for feed content.

Video Specs

Instagram accepts MOV files as well, but MP4 with H.264 encoding produces the most predictable results after the platform's re-encoding pass. Keep your bitrate between 3.5 and 5 Mbps for feed video and up to 8 Mbps for Reels where you want maximum sharpness.

TikTok

TikTok is a vertical-video-first platform. Everything here is built around the 9:16 phone screen, and the algorithm visibly favors content that fills the entire display without letterboxing.

Image and Video Specs

TikTok re-encodes all video uploads. The platform targets roughly 2-4 Mbps for playback, so uploading at extremely high bitrates won't help — the compression will bring it down regardless. What does help is uploading at exactly 1080 x 1920 so the platform doesn't need to rescale your frames before compressing. Every resize step introduces softness.

Audio matters: TikTok compresses audio to AAC at 128 kbps. If your source audio is already at or near 128 kbps, the re-encoding has less work to do and the result sounds cleaner. Exporting at 44.1 kHz / 192 kbps AAC gives the best post-upload quality.

YouTube

YouTube is the most flexible platform in terms of accepted formats and resolutions, but it also has the most distinct asset types — from 4K long-form video to vertical Shorts to channel art that needs to look good across TVs, desktops, and phones simultaneously.

Image Specs

The channel banner is worth calling out specifically. YouTube displays different crops of the same image depending on the device — TV shows the full 2560 x 1440, desktop shows roughly 2560 x 423, and mobile shows an even narrower center crop. Keep your logo and important text within the center 1546 x 423 pixel safe zone, and treat the outer areas as background that may or may not be visible.

Video Specs

YouTube processes uploaded video into multiple quality tiers (360p, 480p, 720p, 1080p, etc.). Uploading at 4K gives the encoder more data to work with, which produces a better-looking 1080p stream compared to uploading native 1080p. If you have the bandwidth and storage, uploading at 4K even when your audience mostly watches at 1080p is a legitimate quality strategy.

Thumbnails are your billboard. Custom thumbnails have a direct measurable impact on click-through rates. Use 1280 x 720 JPG files with clear, bold text (if any) and high contrast. Keep the file size under 2MB.

X (Twitter)

X crops images aggressively in the timeline. What you see in-feed is a cropped preview; users have to tap to see the full image. Knowing the crop behavior helps you compose images that look good both cropped and expanded.

Image Specs

A single image in a tweet is displayed at 16:9 in the timeline. If you upload a 1:1 square image, X will crop the top and bottom in the feed preview. For maximum control over what people see before they tap, compose your images at 1200 x 675 or any 16:9 equivalent.

Video Specs

X supports H.264 with AAC audio. Videos auto-play muted in the feed, which means the first few frames need to be visually compelling enough to stop the scroll without relying on sound.

Facebook

Facebook supports the widest variety of content types and is the most forgiving about input formats, but it also has some of the most aggressive image compression. Uploading at the right dimensions and high quality helps offset this.

Image Specs

Facebook's link preview images use the same 1200 x 630 dimension as standard feed images. If you're sharing URLs, the Open Graph og:image tag should point to a 1200 x 630 image for the best visual result in people's feeds.

Video Specs

Facebook is relatively lenient on input format — it will accept most video containers and codecs and re-encode internally. But MP4 with H.264 always produces the most predictable output quality.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn's visual specs are often overlooked because people think of it as a text-first platform, but posts with properly sized images see significantly higher engagement than text-only updates.

Image and Video Specs

LinkedIn compresses images less aggressively than Instagram or Facebook, so the quality you upload is closer to what people see. Upload PNG for graphics with text (such as infographics or data visualizations) to keep text rendering sharp.

Choosing the Right Image Format

Every platform accepts JPG and PNG. The choice between them matters more than most people realize, because each format has fundamental strengths:

JPG (JPEG) is the right choice for photographs — anything captured by a camera with complex color gradients, lighting, and natural detail. JPG's lossy compression is specifically designed for photographic content, and at quality 85-92, the compression artifacts are invisible while file sizes stay reasonable. Every social media platform handles JPG uploads efficiently.

PNG is the right choice for graphics that contain text, sharp edges, logos, screenshots, or transparency. PNG uses lossless compression, which means text stays razor-sharp and solid colors stay perfectly uniform. The trade-off is larger file sizes, but for non-photographic content, the quality difference is worth it.

WebP offers better compression than both JPG and PNG while supporting both lossy and lossless modes plus transparency. As of 2026, most platforms accept WebP uploads, though some will convert them to JPG internally. WebP is an excellent working format for keeping file sizes down before uploading.

The practical rule: Use JPG at quality 90+ for photos. Use PNG for anything with text, logos, or transparency. Use WebP when you need to reduce file size further or when working with a platform that natively supports it.

Choosing the Right Video Format and Codec

For social media, the codec (how the video is compressed) matters more than the container (the file extension).

H.264 in an MP4 container is the universal standard. Every platform accepts it, every device can play it, and every editing application can export it. If you're unsure, this is always the right choice.

H.265 (HEVC) produces files roughly 40-50% smaller than H.264 at equivalent visual quality. Most platforms now accept H.265 uploads and will re-encode to their internal format regardless. If you need to minimize upload time on a slow connection, encoding to H.265 first can help.

MOV containers (common on Apple devices) are accepted by all major platforms. There's no need to convert MOV to MP4 before uploading — the video data inside is typically the same H.264 or H.265 stream.

For audio within video, AAC at 128-192 kbps at 44.1 kHz is the standard that every platform expects. Avoid uploading with PCM (uncompressed) audio, as it inflates file size without any benefit — platforms will compress it to AAC during processing.

How to Resize and Convert with Fileza

Rather than opening heavyweight editing software to resize an image from 4000 x 3000 to 1080 x 1350 for an Instagram portrait post, Fileza handles this directly in your browser. Everything stays on your device — nothing gets uploaded to a server.

For images:

1. Open Fileza Image Tools and drop your images in
2. Select your target format (JPG for photos, PNG for graphics)
3. Set custom dimensions to match the platform specs from this guide
4. Adjust quality (85-92 for JPG is the sweet spot for social media)
5. Convert and download — the file is ready to upload

For video:

1. Open Fileza Video Tools and add your video file
2. Select MP4 as the output format
3. Set resolution to match your target platform (1080 x 1920 for Reels/Shorts, 1920 x 1080 for YouTube)
4. Process the conversion — Fileza uses FFmpeg WASM to handle the encoding directly in your browser

Batch processing is particularly useful when you're preparing content for multiple platforms simultaneously. Drop in a batch of images, set your target dimensions, and convert them all at once rather than resizing individually.

Tips for Optimizing File Size Without Sacrificing Quality

Social media platforms impose file size limits and will recompress anything you upload. Your goal is to upload files that are high enough quality to survive recompression gracefully, but not so oversized that you're wasting bandwidth.

For images:

• JPG quality 85-92 is the optimal range for social media. Below 85, compression artifacts become noticeable in gradients and skin tones. Above 92, file size increases significantly with negligible visual improvement.
• Strip metadata before uploading. EXIF data (camera settings, GPS coordinates, timestamps) adds kilobytes to every image and is discarded by most platforms during processing anyway. Removing it beforehand reduces upload size and protects your privacy.
• Resize to the target dimensions exactly. Uploading a 6000 x 4000 photo for a 1080 x 1080 Instagram post means the platform discards 97% of your pixels. Do the resize yourself and you control the quality of the downsampling algorithm.
• Use the right format for the content type. A PNG screenshot might be 2MB while the same content as a JPG could be 200KB. But a JPG of a logo with sharp text will look blurry while the PNG stays crisp. Match format to content.

For video:

• Match the platform's playback resolution. Uploading 4K to TikTok, which caps at 1080p, just wastes time and bandwidth. The exception is YouTube, which benefits from 4K uploads even for 1080p delivery.
• Target 8-12 Mbps for 1080p content as a starting bitrate. This gives platforms enough data to work with during recompression while keeping file sizes manageable.
• Use two-pass encoding if your tool supports it. Two-pass encoding analyzes the video first, then allocates bitrate more intelligently — giving more bits to complex scenes and fewer to static ones. The result is better quality at the same file size.
• Trim before converting. If you only need a 60-second clip from a 5-minute recording, cut first, then export. Processing only the segment you need is dramatically faster and produces a smaller file.

Getting your dimensions and formats right is one of those small optimizations that compounds over time. Every post looks a little sharper, every video plays back a little cleaner, and your content gets to compete on its merits rather than fighting platform compression. Bookmark this page, reference it before your next upload, and let the platforms do as little damage as possible to your work.