Social Media Cheat Sheet 2020: Must-Have Image Sizes!

Searching for the ultimate social media cheat sheet?

I’ve been looking forever, and can’t find one that’s completely correct. So I made my own!

Here’s the best social media cheat sheet size guide 2020.

Simple – but accurate! Outdated infographics are still widely posted and shared, despite their misinformation.

You may find a blogger who isn’t a designer and is just reiterating what they found online, whether or not it’s correct or optimal.

I’ve included ALL essential cheat sheet sizes for Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, AND YouTube on the chart. You’ll find notes about aspect ratio and maximum file size where known.

Tumblr and Tinder sizes are listed at the end of this post, though not on the chart.

Social media image sizes that work cross-platform

Here’s a brief rundown of some critical social media photo sizes.

Best size for image posts

1200 pixels square is ideal for Facebook and Instagram posts. It also works well for LinkedIn posts – and can work for Twitter, if you keep any type or other critical elements away from the top and bottom of the image.

A square is a 1:1 aspect ratio.

Squares can also be posted on Pinterest. Test these against the recommended 2:3 Pins, and see how squares go over with your audience.

If Pinterest is your main platform, try the 2:3 images on Facebook, as they work there too. In fact, I love the impact these taller images have on Facebook.

Want to cover both Instagram and Pinterest? Try 4:5 aspect ratio. It’s my favorite size for IG, as it takes up all available height in the feed. Note that it’ll still be cropped to a square on your profile gallery.

Best size for link posts

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all recommend 1200 x 628 pixels, which is 1.91:1 aspect ratio. You need to be including this shape image on every blog post and page!

2020 update: Facebook is now saying 1200 x 630, but those 2 pixels won’t hurt either way. I think they’re just trying to round up? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Multiply the width of your content area by .524 to get the image height. Since my content area is 720px wide, this comes out to 720 x 377 pixels for me.

How do I get images to these sizes?

Q: Do you have recommendation for how to get photos these desired image sizes? I am using iPhoto and I am not getting exact dimensions you describe.

A: You could use a free online photo editor like pixlr.com. Alternatively, you can use an online image creator that has lots of sizes already set up for you!

The two easiest ones I’ve found are Stencil and Snappa. Choose a size template, pick or upload a photo, and it’s automatically sized to fit. Adjust cropping as desired.

Both have a free option or free trial. The paid plans have an amazing Instant Resize feature, so you can make perfectly-sizes images for every network!

Cheat Sheet: Social Media Sizes:

Loads of great info on this page!

Cheat Sheet: Facebook Image Sizes 2020

Not much new here for 2020 (yet) except the aforementioned +2 pixels on the link share.

I have added a ton of additional sizes to my in-depth article dedicated solely to Facebook image sizes.

Read through this section for a minute first as I have links to several articles specific to cover photos and more. Then you can see what you need most, or open the whole array in several new tabs (be sure to right click to do so).

Facebook Cover Photo sizes

In August 2018, Facebook applied Page Templates based on your business type, such as Services, Restaurant, or Store.

This hasn’t affected the image sizes though. Cover photos are still the same.

My recommended proportion for all Facebook cover photos: 16:9.

This works perfectly on mobile. You must allow cropping top and bottom on desktop, so don’t place text or other critical elements near the top and bottom.

This proportion works out to: 1200 x 675, 1640 x 923, or 1920 x 1080. Your choice!

I always recommend going with a larger image for best quality. While FB sometimes specifies minimum sizes required for upload, modern displays have such great resolution that low quality images don’t cut it any more. Go BIG!

Added in June 2017: You can use a video as your cover photo.

Tell More of Your Story
Instead of a cover photo, now you can use a video. It can be 20-90 seconds and should be at least 820 x 312 pixels.

Instead of a cover photo, now you can use a video. It can be 20-90 seconds and should be at least 820 x 312 pixels.

➔ Facebook Page cover photo size: 820 x 312 desktop / 640 x 360 mobile | Optimize your Facebook Page cover photo for desktop and mobile!

➔ Facebook Group cover photo size: 1640 x 859 minimum | Optimize your Facebook Group cover photo for mobile and desktop.

➔ Facebook Event cover photo size: 1200 x 675, see the post for details: Facebook Event Cover for Desktop AND Mobile

Other important Facebook image sizes

➔ Facebook Profile photo size: displays 170 x 170 on Page

➔ Facebook Link preview size: min. 600 x 315

➔ Facebook Photo post size: on the wall, 476 x varied height, larger gives better quality.

Re minimum wall post size, I hope you are using larger photos than minimum already! Up to 2048 x 2048 works for Facebook photo posts.

Every Facebook image size marketers need

Cheat Sheet: Pinterest Image Sizes 2020

The main change for 2020 is that Pinterest has started recommending we use larger, higher quality images.

Instead of calling out 600 pixels as an image width, they’re now saying 1000 pixels.

Re Pin shape or aspect ratio, in 2018, Pinterest verified that Pins taller than 2.1 times their width will be cropped in the feed. However, taller Pins will be seen in full when clicked (March 2018).

I still recommend tall infographics! They perform for me.

But Pinterest ONLY recommends 2:3 proportion now, using 1000 x 1500 as an example. Many bloggers report that taller Pins work better for them though! So try a variety of shapes and sizes.

You can use your favorite width, and keep your Pin dimensions in these proportions:

1:1 or square
1:1.5 or slightly tall (Pinterest says optimal)
1:2.1 or moderately tall
Tall as you like, but will be cropped in feed

Pinterest has said squares are fine. I don’t see squares performing as well as taller Pins, though. If you already have square images for Instagram, test with your audience on Pinterest.

Note that Pins no longer appear at 736 pixels wide when clicked (changed Fall 2017). Now they’re never seen bigger than 564 pixels wide.

I had a reader who made Pin images to 564 width and reported that gave her the best quality result after uploading. However, I’ve also been told that Pinterest says not to go smaller than 600px width.

With high resolution displays these days, I always recommend that bigger is better. But do mind your page speed if you display larger images on your site, as they can slow you down.

Pinterest board covers are SQUARE. I recommend 600 x 600. If you use the Showcase feature, you’ll want to make sure you make them at least 340 x 340.

Note: Few Pinners look at profiles and boards, so covers aren’t a necessity.

➔ Pinterest Profile Photo size: 180 x 180 or larger

➔ Maximum pin width when clicked: 564

➔ Board cover: suggested minimum 340 x 340

➔ Minimum image size that can be pinned: 100 x 200 (I can no longer verify this)

Cheat Sheet: Instagram Image Sizes 2020

Instagram posts are no longer limited to square! However, your images will still be cropped to square on your profile page gallery.

➔ Instagram Profile Photo size: 110 x 110 minimum

➔ Instagram photo size: minimum 1080 width for best quality

➔ Instagram landscape photo size: 1.91:1 proportion, or 1080 x 566.

➔ Instagram portrait photo size: 4:5 proportion, or 1080 x 1350.

Cheat Sheet: Twitter Image Sizes 2020

New for 2020: the infuriating Twitter header that could crop 100 different ways became one standard shape and size on every device and browser width (August 2019). It’s no longer responsive but stays at a static aspect ratio of 3:1.

Tweeted image size changed in 2017. Even in 2020, it’s still quoted incorrectly almost everywhere. Read on for the straight scoop.

What does Twitter say about image sizes?

➔ Twitter Header size: 3:1 or 1500 x 500 pixels

➔ Twitter Profile size: 1:1 or 400 x 400 pixels

➔ Tweeted Image size: 16:9 or 1200 x 675 pixels

➔ Twitter Card image size: 1.91:1 or 1200 x 628 pixels

Tweeted images are not 2:1 proportion! If you post that size, the edges will be cut off in the stream.

Tweet images will still be shown in full when clicked, so you can use square for portability across social media networks – but they’ll be cropped in the feed on mobile.

Multi-image tweet sizes

For two images, the images will be side by side, both at 7:8 aspect ratios.
For three images, there will be one 7:8 aspect ratio image on the left, with two 4:7 aspect ratio images running up the right side of the image.
For four images, there will be four 2:1 aspect ratio images in a grid.

Cheat Sheet: LinkedIn Image Sizes 2020

Those maddening responsive background images (banner / cover photo) on personal profiles were dumped in August 2017. The new recommended size is 1584 wide by 396 high. This is exactly 4:1 proportion.

You can also crop, filter, and adjust your photo after you upload it to LinkedIn.

Tips from LinkedIn:

If your background image appears blurry or pixelated, please choose an image with a file size as close to the maximum (8 MB) as possible, as images with larger file sizes typically look better. Photos will also look better than images with logos.

You can crop, filter, and adjust the NEW LinkedIn background photo – August 2017.

LinkedIn image recap: Max file size 8MB and file type must be PNG, JPEG, or GIF.

➔ LinkedIn profile cover photo: 1584 wide by 396 high. This is exactly 4:1 proportion.

➔ LinkedIn profile picture: Per LI, upload any size between 400 x 400 pixels and 20,000 x 20,000 px.

➔ LinkedIn blog post link shares match Facebook’s! 1200 x 628 px.

➔ LinkedIn photo share: 1200 x 1200 square looks best on desktop, but gets cropped to horizontal in the mobile feed. The link share size works best there¹.

➔ LinkedIn Company cover photo size: 1536 x 768 px².

➔ LinkedIn logo size: 300 x 300 square. No more horizontal.

More company and career page image sizes on LinkedIn here.

¹LinkedIn photo post size seems difficult to determine. It appears to be a slightly taller shape than previously, but no one seems to agree on the size (see this discussion). If you find someone who makes picture quotes specifically to a LinkedIn size, won’t you let us know?

One woman suggested 792 x 528px. I checked and it did look the same on desktop and mobile. However, when you click on desktop, it gets so much bigger. I’d double those dimensions for best clarity.

LinkedIn company cover photo

²There’s some question as to how they work. The height is greatly cropped. I suspect that the cover image proportions work for mobile.

Just as with Facebook and Twitter, the height gets cropped on desktop – although much more severely.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to create something and test it on different devices if it has critical elements that need to show. Or else think of it as more of a “background” image that doesn’t have faces, type, or other elements that would look bad when cropped on different devices.

What LinkedIn recommends:

Your cover image may have to be adjusted to fit the screen which may involve trimming the image horizontally or vertically. We recommend uploading a high-quality image with as little text as possible to ensure an optimal display on all devices and screen sizes. Our accepted image formats for uploads are PNG or JPEG.

The proportions don’t seem correct, but I’ll let you mess with that if you want. With these responsive headers, I recommend uploading an appropriate photo background and letting the cropping fall where it may. With different crops on different devices, LinkedIn company page headers have become too difficult to place text on.

Cheat Sheet: YouTube Image Sizes

➔ YouTube Channel Art size: 2560 x 1440

➔ Be sure to check the template as cropping varies widely from TV to mobile to desktop

➔ Video thumbnail: 1280 x 720

➔ Channel icon: 800 x 800

Cheat Sheet: Tumblr Image Sizes

It’s hard to find image sizes for this platform, and one reason may be that it’s pretty freeform. Different themes can vary greatly.

I don’t use Tumblr and decided not to add it to the cheat sheet, since I won’t know if things change.

Here’s an excellent Tumblr sizes overview offered by reader Morgana Johnson:

Although all themes are different, the most common sizes still display 500 and 400 width posts (and most “photography” themes either display everything with a width of 1280, or even the highest resolution available).

However, anything on the dashboard feed is shown at and resized to 540. Size limitations have also risen to 10MB for pictures, and supposedly 3MB for animated .gif images (However animated gifs are just buggy on tumblr, it’s best to “aim” between 1-3MB.)

Anyone using tumblr as a portfolio would have the best experience, and largest variety of themes to choose from, if they create images with a width of 500 or 400. However, those who plan to market themselves and gain a following on tumblr should create images meant to be displayed at 540. Those particular users should also pay close attention to the following new feature:

Tumblr has implemented a “dashboard pop-over” with a header, which works both as a mobile theme and allows desktop users to have a quick glance at a blog without leaving the dashboard. The header displays at “various sizes” with an aspect ratio of 16:9. Generally, it displays at 1240 x 700 for desktop browsers, but is optimized at 640 × 360 for mobile.

(It can also display animated gif images with the same size restrictions as posts. From my personal experience, however, I can’t get any header to animate if it’s larger than 1.5MB.)

It’s also worth noting that users who choose to keep the default theme show the same header at 3000 x 1055 on their blog, and displays posts with a width of 540.

Cheat Sheet: Tinder Photo Sizes

Nope, I don’t use Tinder, but due to the popularity of this article, Google is sending searchers here for Tinder photo dimensions.

Not one to disappoint, I’m including them for you!

Tinder requires photos be cropped to square for upload.

According to Photofeeler, on an iPhone 6, the required Tinder pixel dimensions are 640 x 640.

In the swiping deck, however, this will be zoomed into and displayed at 600 x 848 pixels. This aspect ratio is 1:1.325, or 7:10.

The exact number of pixels will vary by the viewer’s device.

My suggestion is to start with a photo where your face doesn’t fill the square from side to side, since you can anticipate those sides being cropped off in the swiping deck.

And don’t use a photo where your face is way off to one side, as you’ll lose part of your face in the swiping deck.

Or, you can use an app like Square Instapic that will add borders to the sides of your portrait-shaped portrait to make it a square.

BTW, 8 x 10 is the standard portrait shape. So not exactly Tinder’s 7 x 10, but close. 🙂

tinder image cropping visual — Here’s how your Tinder image crops on the swiping deck.

Cheat Sheet: MeWe image sizes

There’s at least one person searching for this cheat sheet info. And, it simply does not exist.

My guess is, pixel dimensions don’t matter to MeWe.

The MeWe banner image appears on your profile 3 times wider than tall. For example: 1,200 pixel wide by 400 pixels high.

The maximum file size you can upload is 500MB, whether you have a paid account or not. This applies to videos, photos, documents, audio files, and anything else you might choose to upload.

If you have any tips for MeWe images, please leave a comment!