Instagram carousel size
Use 1080 × 1350 px (4:5) for Instagram carousel slides. It fills the most feed space of any accepted ratio. A carousel holds up to 20 slides, and the first slide’s aspect ratio is applied to every slide after it, so all your slides need to match before you post.
| Instagram carousel slide | 1080 × 1350 px (4:5) |
|---|---|
| Instagram square post | 1080 × 1080 px (1:1) |
| Instagram landscape post | 1080 × 566 px (1.91:1) |
| Instagram profile grid tile | 1080 × 1440 px (3:4) |
The three ratios a carousel accepts
- Portrait: 1080 × 1350 px (4:5). The default choice. Takes up the most vertical space in the feed.
- Square: 1080 × 1080 px (1:1). Useful when the same assets are going to other platforms, or when a panorama divides more neatly into squares.
- Landscape: 1080 × 566 px (1.91:1). The widest the feed accepts. It occupies little vertical space and is cropped hard in the profile grid, so use it only when the content genuinely needs the width.
All three are safe to post. What is not safe is mixing them in one carousel.
The first slide sets the ratio
This is the rule that ruins split panoramas, and it is not signposted anywhere in the app.
Whatever aspect ratio your first slide has, every following slide is cropped to match it. Put a 4:5 slide first and a square slide second, and the square one arrives centre-cropped to 4:5 with its sides removed. You do not get to choose which sides.
For a carousel split from one image this is the difference between a clean post and a mangled one. Slices from a wide source come out short and wide. Instagram then squeezes each one into the first slide’s frame and cuts off whatever does not fit.
There are two ways to handle it, and one of them is much better.
Size the source so every slice already matches. Decide your slide ratio and slide count first, then make the source that shape. Three 4:5 slides means a 3240 × 1350 source, which splits into slices of 1080 × 1350 px. Five slides means 5400 × 1350, giving 1080 × 1350 px. Ten slides means 10800 × 1350, giving 1080 × 1350 px. Every slice is already correct, so Instagram has nothing to crop.
Pad the slices you have. When the source is a photo you cannot re-shoot, pad instead of cropping. Each slice goes onto a taller canvas with a background you choose, so it matches the target ratio without losing any picture. A 3000 × 1000 panorama split into three gives slices of 1000 × 1000 px; padded to 4:5 each one becomes 1000 × 1250 px. The bars read as a frame, and nothing is cut.
The carousel splitter does both: it splits, and it pads each slice to your chosen ratio with white, black, a blurred copy of the slice’s own edge, or a colour you pick.
The 20-slide limit
Instagram doubled the carousel limit from 10 to 20 in August 2024, and 20 is still the ceiling in the app.
One catch worth knowing before you plan a long carousel: many third-party schedulers still refuse more than 10 slides, because Meta’s publishing API limit has not moved even though the app’s has. If your scheduler rejects slide eleven, that is why. Post it from the Instagram app instead.
There is a practical limit below the technical one. Swipe-through rates fall off with length, and a 20-slide panorama asks a lot of a casual scroller. Splitting a wide image into 3 to 6 slides tends to hold together better than splitting it into 15.
Panorama maths
For a carousel that runs continuously across the joins, the arithmetic is one multiplication.
Take your target slide size, multiply the width by the number of slides, and make the source image that wide. For 4:5 slides at 1080 × 1350 px:
- 2 slides: a 2160 × 1350 source, giving slices of 1080 × 1350 px
- 3 slides: 3240 × 1350, giving 1080 × 1350 px
- 4 slides: 4320 × 1350, giving 1080 × 1350 px
- 6 slides: 6480 × 1350, giving 1080 × 1350 px
For square slides at 1080 × 1080 px, the same idea with a shorter multiplier: a 3240 × 1080 source gives 1080 × 1080 px.
You can work at any multiple of these and downscale later. Working at 3× (so 9720 × 4050 for three portrait slides) leaves room to crop and reframe without ever going below Instagram’s preferred resolution.
Two things decide whether the joins read as one picture. Put the cuts through detailed areas rather than flat sky, because a seam in a gradient shows any difference in how Instagram rendered each slide. And give each slide something worth looking at on its own, since Instagram shows a sliver of the next slide and people swipe fast. The seamless carousel splitter handles the cutting; the framing is yours.
How carousels appear in the profile grid
The first slide becomes the grid thumbnail, cropped to 3:4 like every other post. A 4:5 first slide loses only thin side strips. A square first slide loses a band off the top and the bottom.
Design the first slide to survive that crop, since it is the only one anybody sees on your profile page. More on the crop itself in Instagram grid size.
Sizes last verified: September 7, 2026. Meta publishes no official pixel dimensions for feed posts, so the ratios are the reliable part and the pixel figures are current best practice.
FAQ
What size should an Instagram carousel be?
1080 × 1350 px (4:5) for portrait, 1080 × 1080 px for square, or 1080 × 566 px for landscape. Portrait fills the most feed space and is the default recommendation. Pick one ratio and use it for every slide, because the first slide’s ratio is imposed on all the others.
How many slides can an Instagram carousel have?
Up to 20, doubled from the previous limit of 10 in August 2024. Third-party schedulers often still cap at 10 because Meta’s publishing API limit has not been raised, so post longer carousels directly from the Instagram app if your scheduling tool refuses them.
Can I mix portrait and square slides in one carousel?
No. Instagram applies the first slide’s aspect ratio to every slide in the post and centre-crops the ones that do not match. If your slides are different shapes, pad them all to a single ratio before uploading rather than letting Instagram decide which edges to remove.
How do I split a panorama into carousel slides?
Make the source as wide as one slide multiplied by the number of slides. For three 4:5 slides, use a 3240 × 1350 source, which splits into slices of 1080 × 1350 px. Then cut it 1×N with the carousel splitter and post the slices left to right.
Which slide shows on my profile grid?
The first one, cropped to 3:4 like every other post. Nothing about being a carousel changes the crop. Design the first slide so its important content sits inside that centred area, since it is the only slide visible from your profile page.
Does Instagram compress carousel images?
Yes, every upload is re-encoded. Uploading at the recommended width rather than something much larger gives Instagram less to downscale and generally produces a cleaner result. Export slices as high-quality JPG or PNG, and avoid re-saving an image that has already been through several compression passes.