TikTok photo post size in 2026: dimensions, safe zones and file rules

Short version: make every slide 1080 by 1440 pixels (3:4), save it as JPEG or WebP, keep text out of the top 12 percent and the bottom-right corner, and use five to eight slides. Everything below explains why, what happens when you break the rules, and the cases where 9:16 still makes sense.

Updated October 2026. Earlier versions of this page recommended 1080 × 1920. We measured real photo posts in the app in September 2026: TikTok shows the picture in a 3:4 window, so a 9:16 slide loses its top and bottom.

The numbers

	Value	Notes
Aspect ratio	3:4	The window TikTok shows photo posts in
Recommended size	1080 × 1440 px	Fills the window exactly, nothing is cropped
Also accepted	1080 × 1920 px (9:16)	Centre-cropped: about 12% at the top and 12% at the bottom are never shown
File types	JPEG, WebP	PNG uploads in the app but is refused by the posting API
Max file size	20 MB per image	Real exports are 200 to 600 KB
Images per post	1 to 35	5 to 8 performs best for tips and product posts
Title	90 characters	Only shown on the profile grid and in search
Caption	4,000 characters	Hashtags count against this

Why 3:4 and not 9:16

Videos fill the whole phone screen, so it is natural to assume photo posts do too. They do not. When we opened our own photo posts on an iPhone, TikTok drew the picture in a 3:4 window between the status bar and an opaque caption panel, with the page dots and the caption below the picture, not on top of it.

What that means in practice:

• A 3:4 slide (1080 × 1440) fills the window edge to edge. Nothing is cropped.
• A 9:16 slide (1080 × 1920) is centre-cropped into the window. Roughly the top 12 percent and the bottom 12 percent are never shown, so a headline placed near the top of a 9:16 design can be cut in half.
• A square or 4:5 photo does not fill the window; you get bars or a blurred fill around it.

If your source photo is square or 4:5, crop it to 3:4 (fine for lifestyle photos where the subject is centred), or place it on a 3:4 background in a solid brand colour or a blurred copy of the same photo. The cropper on this page does both.

When does 9:16 still make sense? When the same image is also used as a Story or a Reel cover elsewhere and you accept the crop on TikTok. Keep every word inside the middle three quarters of the height and it survives both.

Where TikTok covers your slide

On a 3:4 slide only two things sit on top of the picture:

• A search pill across the top, from about 1 to 7.5 percent of the height ("Find related content" and similar). Keep text below 12 percent (about 175 px) to stay clear of it.
• The action rail in the bottom-right corner: avatar, like and comment, in the right 16 percent of the width (about 170 px), from roughly 62 percent of the height down to the bottom.

The caption, the sound name and the page dots are drawn below the picture on a separate panel, so the bottom of a 3:4 slide is yours, except for that right-hand corner.

That leaves a safe rectangle from about y = 175 to y = 1325 and x = 85 to x = 905 on a 1080 × 1440 slide. Put every word inside it. Backgrounds and the photo itself can run edge to edge.

On a 9:16 slide, keep text between 20 and 70 percent of the height (y = 385 to 1345) and out of the right 16 percent: that is the part that survives the crop and the rail.

A quick self-test: open the post on your phone, cover the bottom-right corner with your thumb and check that every sentence still reads.

How many slides

TikTok allows 35, and there are niches, mainly recipes and long checklists, where 15 to 20 works. For a product or a tip post, five to eight is the range that gets finished. Completion matters because TikTok treats a swipe through every image as a strong signal, and it stops counting the moment someone leaves.

A structure that consistently gets finished:

1. Hook: one specific claim or tension, under 14 words.
2. to 5. One idea per slide. A number, an example, a mistake, a step.
3. Call to action tied to the product: save this, comment a word, link in bio.

If you have more than eight strong slides, you have two posts. Splitting a long list into "part 1" and "part 2" also gives you a natural follow-up.

File type: the PNG trap

Inside the TikTok app you can pick PNG files and they upload. Through TikTok's Content Posting API, which is what every scheduling tool uses, PNG is rejected and the post fails with a media error. If you design in a tool that exports PNG by default, convert to JPEG at 90 percent quality or WebP before scheduling. There is no visible quality difference at phone sizes, and the file is a fifth of the size.

Reelazy renders every slide to JPEG for exactly this reason, whether you post now or schedule it, and new decks are 1080 × 1440 by default.

Text size and contrast

At 1080 pixels wide, body text under 48 px is hard to read on a phone held at arm's length. Hooks look right between 60 and 72 px. Two lines of 54 px text are easier to take in than four lines of 40 px.

Contrast beats colour. White text on a photo needs either a dark band behind it, a soft shadow, or a semi-transparent pill. Outlined text in the TikTok style works too, but only at large sizes. Whatever you choose, use the same treatment on every slide of the post and, ideally, on every post from the account. Consistency is what makes a feed look like a brand.

Music, captions and what the image cannot do

The image carries the words; the caption carries the nudge. Do not repeat the slides in the caption. Use it for the one action you want (save, comment, link) and eight to twelve hashtags: a few broad ones for reach, more specific ones for the right audience, and two or three that describe the product category.

TikTok adds music automatically to photo posts unless you turn it off. Through the API you can ask for auto-added music; you cannot pick a specific track. If a particular sound matters, post the images as a draft to your inbox and finish in the app.

A checklist before you post

• Every slide is 1080 × 1440 (3:4) and saved as JPEG or WebP.
• No text in the top 12 percent or in the bottom-right corner where the like and comment buttons sit.
• Slide 1 has one hook under 14 words; the product does not appear on slide 1 unless the post is about the product itself.
• Five to eight slides, one idea each, last slide is a call to action.
• Same text treatment on every slide.
• Caption adds a nudge, not a repeat; 8 to 12 hashtags.

Frequently asked

Can I post a single photo? Yes. One image with a caption behaves like a photo post with one slide. It gets less watch time than a carousel because there is nothing to swipe.

Does TikTok compress my images? Yes, aggressively on upload. Fine detail and thin lines suffer; large type and simple shapes survive. Do not add noise or film grain, it turns to mush.

What size should the cover be? The first slide is the cover on your profile grid, cropped to the grid's aspect ratio. Keep the hook near the centre so it survives the crop.

Is there a different size for TikTok Shop product cards? Shop cards are generated by TikTok from your listing, not from the post. The photo post itself follows the same 3:4 rule.

Will these numbers change? Probably. TikTok has changed how photo posts are framed before, and interface overlays move with app updates. We re-measure on real posts and update this page; the safe zone here has a margin built in.

Want slides like the ones in this article? Make them in Reelazy — describe your product, approve the outline, post to TikTok.