How do I resize an image for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok?

The sizes to convert to

Read on 11 October 2026, each from the network’s own page. The file limit is the one the page prints for that route.

A JPEG under 2 MB is under every file limit in this table, because 2 MB is the smallest of them. The full lists, with the networks that publish no size, are on the image sizes page.

Two steps: crop to the shape, then scale to the width

A converter does two things, and the order matters.

1. Crop the picture to the target’s shape, at the largest piece of it that fits. The shape is width divided by height: 4:5 is 0.8, 9:16 is 0.5625, 16:9 is 1.78.
2. Scale that piece to the target’s width. If the piece is wider than the target, it is reduced and nothing is invented. If it is narrower, it is enlarged, and the result has fewer real pixels than its size says.

Stretching a picture to fit changes its shape without cropping it, and that is the thing to avoid: a face gets thin or wide. Crop, then scale.

A worked example

Take a 4032 × 3024 photo, which is 4:3. Cut for each target:

The Story takes the narrowest piece: 1701 of 4032 pixels across, about 42% of the width, so the sides go. The thumbnail keeps the full 4032 width and takes 2268 of the 3024 pixels of height, 75%, so the top and bottom go. None of these needs enlarging, because a 4032-pixel photo has more pixels than any of them asks for. A 16:9 photo only 1280 pixels wide would be enlarged three times to reach 3840, though YouTube’s own minimum is 640 wide.

What a network does if you don’t resize

Cropping it yourself means you choose what is cut.

Video

Converting a video is the same two steps on every frame. Instagram’s Reels editor has a Crop tool (how to use it). For TikTok and Shorts, we read no help page that describes cropping an uploaded file to a new shape, so cut the file to 9:16 in whatever editor you use before you upload it. The free video checker then measures a file’s length, shape, resolution and size against each network, but it checks and doesn’t convert.

The free tools, and Mellow Hub

The free image resizer does both steps in the browser: choose a picture and the point to keep in view, and it cuts each size around it and downloads them together. Nothing is uploaded. The free YouTube thumbnail maker builds a thumbnail from a photo and a headline and exports it at 1280 × 720 or 4K.

Mellow Hub sends images and videos to the networks as they are, and doesn’t resize them: each network judges the shape when it receives the file, so resize first.

The first 3 posts are free, however many networks each one goes to, and need no card. After that Hub is paid: plans start at $19 a month (Solo), after a 7-day trial with a card on file that costs nothing if you cancel before it ends, and a monthly plan's first month is 20% off. Publishing is unlimited on every plan, under a fair-use ceiling that stops automated floods (900 publications a month on Solo), where one publication is one post on one account, so a post sent to five networks counts as five toward it. There are no automatic overage charges.