Instagram Carousel Sizes 2026
Square, portrait, or landscape? The exact pixel dimensions for Instagram carousels in 2026, plus which format actually gets the most swipes.
By Syed Ali Hamza Shah · · 2 min read
Pick the wrong size and Instagram crops your text. Pick the right one and your carousel fills the screen. Bookmark this.
The three carousel formats
| Format | Dimensions | Aspect ratio | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square | 1080 × 1080 px | 1:1 | Safe default, grid-friendly |
| Portrait | 1080 × 1350 px | 4:5 | Maximum screen space |
| Landscape | 1080 × 566 px | 1.91:1 | Wide visuals, rarely ideal |
Portrait (1080 × 1350) wins. It takes up the most vertical space in the feed, which means more attention per swipe. Use square only when your grid aesthetic demands it.
Rules that actually matter
- All slides in one carousel must share the same size. Mix a square and a portrait and Instagram crops everything to the first slide's format. Ugly.
- Keep text inside the safe zone. The top and bottom ~250 px of portrait slides can get covered by the UI (username, caption, action buttons). Keep headlines centered.
- Export at 1080 px wide minimum. Anything smaller looks soft on modern screens. 2160 px wide is fine if you want extra crispness, but 1080 is the sweet spot for file size.
- 10 slides max per carousel. That's Instagram's limit. If your story needs 12, it's two carousels, or a tighter story.
Text size: the phone test
If you can't read a slide comfortably at arm's length on your phone, the font is too small. Headlines should be roughly 1/8 of the slide height. Body text never below ~60 px at 1080-wide export.
File format
PNG for text-heavy slides (crisper type), JPG for photo-heavy slides (smaller files). Instagram compresses everything anyway, so start with quality.
Stop memorizing this
Carousels Maker exports every slide at the right dimensions in swipe order, so you never have to think about pixel math again. Pick a template, edit, export, post.