Which aspect ratios cover most social platforms?

Five: 1.91:1 (1200×630) for link previews, 1:1 (1200×1200) as the universal feed format, 4:5 (1080×1350) for vertical feed posts that occupy more of a phone screen, 9:16 (1080×1920) for stories and vertical video, and 16:9 (1920×1080) for video covers, presentations and wide interfaces.

Does aspect ratio or resolution matter more?

They answer different questions. The ratio decides how much screen the post occupies and whether the platform crops it; the resolution decides whether it stays sharp after recompression. Getting the ratio right and the resolution wrong gives you a well-placed blurry image — and the other way round, a sharp image cropped through the middle.

How do I make an image in the right size quickly?

Use a tool with an aspect-ratio switcher that recalculates the canvas for you. In the Flagram screenshot editor, picking 1.91:1 sets the canvas to 1200×630 and fits the image into it with your chosen background and padding, so there is no manual arithmetic or cropping in another editor.

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Social media image sizes: a practical guide

Q: What image size should I use for a link preview?

1200×630 pixels, an aspect ratio of 1.91:1 — the Open Graph standard that social networks and messengers read from the og:image tag on the page. The image comes from the page being linked to, not from the post itself: if the page has no og:image or it is too small, the link renders as plain text or with a tiny thumbnail, and click-through drops.

Q: Why do my images look blurry after uploading?

Platforms recompress uploaded images and scale down the long edge. Photos survive it; screenshots of interfaces do not — small captions and numbers turn to mush. Export with the long edge at 1200 pixels or more, or at double resolution, and crop the frame down so the meaningful part occupies more of the image.

Every platform publishes its own list of recommended social media image sizes, the lists contradict each other, and they go stale within months. The good news is that you do not need them: five aspect ratios cover almost every case, and the two decisions that actually matter — ratio and resolution — answer different questions. Here is which is which, why uploads come out blurry, and where the link-preview image really comes from.

Aspect ratio is not resolution

These get mixed up constantly, and the confusion is behind most bad-looking posts. The aspect ratio decides how much screen the image takes and whether the platform crops it: a vertical picture occupies more of a phone screen and holds attention longer, a horizontal one scrolls past faster. The resolution decides whether the image stays sharp after the platform recompresses it.

Get the ratio right and the resolution wrong and you have a well-placed blurry image. Get the resolution right and the ratio wrong and you have a sharp image cropped through the middle. Both need answering, and they are independent.

Five formats that cover everything

Ratio	Size	Where it goes
1.91:1	1200×630	Link previews in social networks and messengers — the Open Graph standard
1:1	1200×1200	The universal feed format: works for interface shots and quote cards alike
4:5	1080×1350	Vertical feed posts — takes more of a phone screen than a square
9:16	1080×1920	Stories, reels and vertical video covers
16:9	1920×1080	Video covers, presentations, wide interfaces and dashboards

One rule holds across all five: keep the long edge at 1200 pixels or more. Anything smaller gets stretched to the screen width by the platform, and interface text starts falling apart before recompression even happens.

Link previews come from the page, not the post

A common misunderstanding: someone attaches a nice image to a post with a link and expects it in the preview. That is not how it works. The preview image is pulled from the page being linked to — from the og:image tag of its Open Graph markup. The standard size is 1200×630, a ratio of 1.91:1.

If the page has no og:image, or the image is too small, the link renders as plain text or with a small thumbnail off to the side — and click-through drops noticeably. So for your own site or a campaign landing page it is worth building a dedicated preview image: a product screenshot in a browser frame on a brand background reads far better in a chat than a logo on white.

Making one: open the screenshot editor , drop the image in, pick the 1.91:1 format — the canvas becomes exactly 1200×630 — and download the PNG for your og:image. No manual resizing.

Why images come out blurry

Platforms recompress what you upload and scale down the long edge. A photo barely suffers; a screenshot of an interface suffers a lot — small labels, numbers in tables and menu items turn to mush. Three habits fix it before upload.

Capture larger. Zoom the page to 125–150% before the screenshot, or narrow the window — the interface then occupies more pixels and survives compression.
Export at double resolution. A 2× export leaves headroom: even after recompression the image looks sharp on a phone.
Crop to the point. A full-screen capture with a taskbar, tabs and half a sidebar forces the platform to squeeze everything at once. Keep only the block the post exists for and the usable area multiplies.

Checklist before publishing

The long edge is at least 1200 pixels.
The ratio matches the destination: 1:1 or 4:5 for the feed, 9:16 for stories, 1.91:1 for a link preview.
The frame is cropped to the essential — no taskbar, spare tabs or empty sidebar.
Text in the image is readable on a phone, not only on a monitor.
There is no personal data, no other people's names and no session tokens in frame.
If the image is for a link preview, it is in the page's og:image — not attached to the post.

Sizes in paid placements

In an ad placement the image does double duty: it explains the product and sets the impression of the advertiser. A screenshot in a browser frame on a tidy background reads as a product with a team behind it; the same capture undressed reads as a post thrown together. The difference is a couple of minutes of work and a visible difference in click-through.

When a creative is being prepared for a specific placement, it is worth looking at how posts are dressed in that channel first — the format the audience is used to is not always the one in the platform's documentation, and a creative that clashes with the feed gets skipped regardless of how correct its dimensions are.

FAQ

What image size should I use for a link preview?

1200×630, a ratio of 1.91:1 — the Open Graph standard. The image comes from the linked page's og:image tag, not from the post; without it the link shows as plain text or a tiny thumbnail.

Which aspect ratios cover most platforms?

Five: 1.91:1 for link previews, 1:1 as the universal feed format, 4:5 for vertical feed posts, 9:16 for stories, 16:9 for video covers and presentations.

Why do my images look blurry after uploading?

Platforms recompress and scale down the long edge. Export with the long edge at 1200 px or more, or at 2×, and crop the frame so the meaningful part fills more of it.

Does ratio or resolution matter more?

They answer different questions: the ratio decides screen occupancy and cropping, the resolution decides sharpness after recompression. Both need to be right.

How do I produce the right size quickly?

Use a tool that recalculates the canvas for you. In the Flagram screenshot editor the format switcher sets the exact canvas and fits the image into it with your background and padding.

Wrapping up

You do not need a table of platform-specific dimensions that goes stale every season. Five ratios cover nearly everything, one rule handles resolution — a long edge of 1200 pixels or more — and one fact resolves the most common confusion: a link preview is built from the page's og:image, not from the image attached to the post.

The rest is treatment: crop to the point, add a frame and a background so the image does not dissolve into the feed, and export in the format the destination expects. That takes about a minute in the Flagram screenshot editor — no sign-up, and nothing uploaded to a server.