Instagram Reel cover size: one image, two crops
A cover is authored on the full 9:16 Reel frame, then shown on your profile grid as a much narrower rectangle cut out of the middle of it.
GridSlice, already set up for this page
The numbers, and where each one came from
| Spec | Value | Where this comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Authoring frame | 1080 × 1920 pxThe cover is a still on the Reel's own 9:16 canvas. | OfficialMeta for Developers |
| Full-screen playback crop | the whole 9:16 frameIn the Reels feed you see all of it, which is why a cover can look perfect there and wrong on your profile. | DerivedshotMod |
| Profile-grid crop | a taller-than-wide slice of the middleInstagram publishes no pixel figure for the grid cell and it has changed more than once — so this page will not invent one. | UnverifiedshotMod |
| Where to put the title | the middle third, verticallyThe region both crops keep. It is a composition rule derived from the two shapes, not a published margin. | DerivedshotMod |
| Export from this page | 1080 × 1920 JPEG or PNG | MeasuredshotMod |
Last verified 2026-09-05 · 5 sources
- Reels publishing — recommended video specification (9 x 16, 1080 × 1920, 3–90 s, 24–60 fps, H.264/H.265, AAC LC 48 kHz) — Meta for Developers
- Instagram Platform content publishing — carousels are limited to 10 items and every slide is cropped to the first slide's ratio — Meta for Developers
- Derived arithmetically from the ratio and width in the cited Meta specification — no independent claim is made — shotMod
- Behaviour of the shipped in-browser export path, measured on the shotMod build dated 2026-09-05 — the tool doing it is the one mounted above — shotMod
- Community consensus, not an Instagram document — Instagram publishes no current page stating this value, and help.instagram.com serves article bodies only to JavaScript, so no Help Center article can honestly be cited for it (checked 2026-09-05) — shotMod
What this actually means
A Reel cover is the only Instagram image that is displayed as two different rectangles depending on where you look at it. In the Reels feed it is the full 9:16 frame. On your profile grid it is a narrower slice taken out of the middle of that frame. One file, two crops, and no preview in the app shows you both at once.
That is what makes covers annoying in a way ordinary sizes are not. The question is not “what size”, because the size is simply the Reel's own frame. The question is “which part survives both views”, and the answer is the middle — vertically and horizontally. Everything else is a gamble on which surface a given viewer happens to be looking at.
What goes wrong
The classic mistake is a title anchored to the bottom of the cover. It looks deliberate in full-screen playback and vanishes on your profile, so the grid fills up with covers whose text is cut in half. If a cover has to carry words, they belong in the middle band, at a size that still reads when the whole tile is about the width of a fingertip.
Treating a grid pixel size as a settled fact is the other way this goes wrong. Instagram has changed the profile grid's cell shape more than once and publishes no figure for it, so a page that prints an exact grid rectangle is quoting a screenshot someone measured on one device in one app version. This page marks that row unverified for exactly that reason, and gives you a composition rule that survives the next change instead.
How to do it here, in three steps
- Cover · 1080 × 1920 comes up preselected: the frame a cover is authored on.
- Add the still you want as the cover and drag the important part towards the centre.
- Position the subject and any wording in the middle, then export and set it as the cover.
Questions, answered
What size is an Instagram Reel cover?
It is authored at the Reel's own frame size — 1080 × 1920 pixels at 9:16. The complication is not the size but the fact that your profile grid shows only a narrower slice of the middle of that frame.
Why does my Reel cover look cut off on my profile?
Because the profile grid crops the 9:16 cover down to a narrower tile taken from the centre. Anything you placed near the top or bottom of the frame is outside that tile, even though it is fully visible during playback.
Where should text go on a Reel cover?
In the middle band of the frame, both vertically and horizontally, since that is the region kept by the full-screen view and the grid tile alike. Keep it large enough to read at thumbnail scale.
Everything on this page runs on your own device. Nothing you add is uploaded, and there is no account to create.