Instagram Story Size 2026: Exact Dimensions (1080 × 1920)

The Instagram Story size is 1080 × 1920 pixels, with a 9:16 (vertical) aspect ratio. It's the same format Reels and TikTok use. If you upload a square or horizontal photo, Instagram shows it with bars around it or crops it automatically — and on a dish photo, that crop usually takes away exactly the part you wanted to show. This guide has the exact dimensions for every channel where your restaurant publishes images: Stories, feed, TikTok, Facebook, your website, Google Business, delivery apps and printed signage.

Summary table: every image size your restaurant needs

Instagram Story size: 1080 × 1920 px (9:16)

The exact Instagram Story dimensions are 1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels tall — full vertical screen. It's also the standard for Reels, so a single export works for both.

• Exact resolution: 1080 × 1920 px. Instagram accepts larger resolutions at the same 9:16 ratio (e.g. 1440 × 2560) but compresses them down to 1080 × 1920.
• Safe zones: leave at least 250 px free at the top and bottom. The Stories interface (your username at the top, the reply field at the bottom) covers those strips — if the dish or your logo sits there, it won't be seen.
• What happens with other formats: a square (1:1) photo appears with large bars above and below; a horizontal one loses its impact entirely. If you only have the photo in another format, crop it to 9:16 yourself and choose the framing — don't let Instagram decide.
• File and weight: JPG or PNG up to 30 MB for photos; Story videos can run up to 60 seconds.

Why the right format matters as much as photo quality

A well-lit, well-edited food photo can be completely ruined if it's published at the wrong size. Every platform crops, compresses or stretches images according to its own rules, and those rules don't warn you: they simply apply the crop automatically and silently. The most common result is losing exactly the part of the dish that should be the star, or handing your print designer a file that looks perfect on screen but pixelates on paper. Knowing in advance what size each channel needs avoids having to redo the work afterward.

Format and size guide by channel

Instagram — Feed (regular post)

• Square format (1:1): 1080 × 1080 px. The safest option for dish photos because it's never cropped and looks the same on every device.
• Vertical format (4:5): 1080 × 1350 px. Takes up more space in the feed and generates more engagement. Ideal for dish photos with background or restaurant context.
• Horizontal format (1.91:1): 1080 × 566 px. Only recommended for venue ambience shots, never for close-ups of dishes.

TikTok

• Vertical format (9:16): 1080 × 1920 px, same as Stories and Reels. If you reuse the same video or photo across multiple platforms, this format is the most compatible across all of them.
• Just like Stories, it's worth leaving free margin at the top and bottom: TikTok's interface (description, interaction buttons) occupies those zones and can cover part of the dish if the main element is too close to the edge.

Facebook (page posts)

• Feed image: 1200 × 630 px (approximately 1.91:1 ratio) is the recommended size for the image to display in full without cropping on the page's wall.
• Page cover photo: 820 × 312 px on desktop, though it's recommended to center key elements because the crop varies between desktop and mobile.

Restaurant website

• Main hero/banner: Minimum 1920 × 1080 px, 16:9 format. These are the largest images on your site and the first thing visitors see. They require high resolution.
• Dish gallery: 800 × 800 px or 1200 × 800 px. For food photography galleries on the web, square or slightly horizontal works best.
• Thumbnails: 400 × 400 px. For dish lists or digital menu previews.
• File format: WebP or JPEG at 80% compression. Never upload high-resolution PNG to the web: it slows down loading and hurts SEO.

Google Business and Google Maps

• Cover photo: 1332 × 750 px (16:9 ratio). This is what shows in Google search results.
• Venue and dish photos: Minimum 720 × 720 px. Google recommends images of at least 10KB and a maximum of 5MB in JPG or PNG format.

Signage and physical posters

• A4 poster (21 × 29.7 cm): Minimum resolution of 2480 × 3508 px at 300 DPI. If the image doesn't have that resolution, it will pixelate when printed.
• A3 poster (29.7 × 42 cm): Minimum resolution of 3508 × 4961 px at 300 DPI.
• Chalkboard and daily menu: If you use a digital design with an image, make sure the photo has at least 150 DPI for correct display on a large screen.
• A5 printed menu: Minimum 1748 × 2480 px at 300 DPI.

Delivery platforms (Glovo, Uber Eats, Just Eat)

• Standard format: 1200 × 900 px (4:3 ratio). Most delivery platforms use this ratio for dish thumbnails.
• Restaurant cover banner: 2000 × 1000 px (2:1 ratio).
• Images must be in JPG format, maximum 8MB.
• If you need to fit your photos to each platform's exact size, our free resizer for Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat does it in the browser — no signup, nothing uploaded to any server.

The most common format mistakes and how they affect you

• Uploading a horizontal photo to Stories or Reels: the platform shrinks it and adds white or black side bars, losing all the dish's visual impact.
• Sending a low-resolution photo to print: the result is a poster or menu with pixelated edges, something customers perceive as carelessness even without knowing technically why it looks wrong.
• Uploading heavy PNGs to the website: besides slowing down page load, this directly hurts search engine ranking, since load speed is a ranking factor.
• Centering the dish in a zone that ends up covered: in Stories, thumbnails, or banners with overlaid text, not respecting safe zones means interface elements cover exactly the most important part of the image.
• Reusing the delivery thumbnail for printed signage: a 1200×900 px image meant for screen is far below the 300 DPI an A4 or A3 poster requires, so the printed result will look blurry even though it looks perfectly sharp on a phone.

How to name your exported files so you don't lose track

When the same dish ends up with five or six different versions (square, vertical, horizontal, high resolution, web), it's easy to lose track of which is which. A simple naming convention saves confusion:

• Include the dish name and the format in the file name: for example "mixed-paella_1080x1080.jpg" instead of "IMG_4821.jpg".
• Add the date if the dish changes versions over time: "mixed-paella_2026-04_1080x1080.jpg" avoids confusing the old photo with the updated one.
• Keep one folder per destination channel: one for Instagram, another for delivery, another for print. That way, when you update a dish, you know exactly which file to replace where.

How FoodyFocus handles formats automatically

One of the platform's biggest time-savers is multi-format export: you upload a single food photo and the platform automatically generates all the optimized versions for each channel, from the square Instagram crop to the high-DPI file your printer needs. No manual cropping, no distorting resizes, no quality loss. Each channel receives the image at the exact proportions and resolution it needs, without you having to remember a single pixel dimension.

The automatic-crop mistake

When you upload a photo in the wrong format and let Instagram, Google or other platforms crop it automatically, the result is unpredictable. The dish can end up cut off, the logo can disappear, or the central element of the image can end up at the edge. It's always better to manually export in the correct format or use a tool that does it for you, rather than trusting each platform's automatic crop to guess which part of the photo matters.

Frequently asked questions about restaurant photo sizes and formats

What is the Instagram Story size?

1080 × 1920 pixels, 9:16 aspect ratio (full-screen vertical). It's the same format Instagram Reels and TikTok use, so one export works for all three.

What are the exact dimensions of an Instagram Story?

1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels tall. You can upload larger resolutions if they keep the 9:16 ratio, but Instagram will compress them to 1080 × 1920, so exporting directly at that size gives the best result.

What happens if I upload a square or horizontal photo to Stories?

Instagram shows it centered with bars above and below (square) or heavily shrunk (horizontal), losing most of its visual impact. It's better to crop the photo to 9:16 yourself and choose which part of the dish is visible, instead of letting the platform decide.

Can I use the same square photo for everything?

It works as a safe-default format because it's almost never cropped badly, but it isn't optimal for Stories, Reels or TikTok, where vertical format uses the whole screen and tends to generate more interaction.

What minimum resolution do I need to print the menu?

As a general rule, 300 DPI at the final print size. For an A4 that's roughly 2480 × 3508 pixels; for an A5, about half that.

Is WebP better than JPEG for the restaurant website?

WebP usually offers a smaller file size with similar visual quality, which helps load speed. Most content management systems and modern platforms support it without issue.

Do I need a different size for each delivery platform?

Glovo, Uber Eats and Just Eat's specifications are very similar to each other (4:3 format around 1200×900 px), so usually a single export works for all three without additional adjustments.

What size do I use for a YouTube video thumbnail?

The standard is 1280 × 720 px (16:9 ratio). If you upload videos of your restaurant or recipes, a sharp thumbnail in that format improves click-through rate just as a good cover photo does on any other platform.

Conclusion

Mastering image formats for restaurants doesn't require being a graphic designer. It requires knowing each channel's specifications — starting with the 1080 × 1920 Stories format, the one restaurants publish most often — and having a workflow that generates the correct versions without duplicating effort. Food photography is already demanding enough: formatting shouldn't be an additional obstacle, and certainly not the reason a good photo ends up looking bad on the wrong channel.