Crop an image for Instagram

Which Instagram ratio to use

Three shapes cover almost everything. A 4:5 portrait at 1080x1350 fills the most feed space and is the safest default. A 1:1 square at 1080x1080 is the classic grid post and lines up cleanly on your profile. A 9:16 vertical at 1080x1920 is for stories and reels.

The cropper opens on 4:5 because it claims the most space in the feed, but tap the ratio bar to switch to 1:1 or 9:16 depending on what you are posting. Crop to the right shape and Instagram shows it in full instead of trimming it.

Why the right crop beats letting Instagram do it

Upload a shape Instagram does not support and it crops to fit, usually chopping the top and bottom of a tall photo or the sides of a wide one. That auto-crop is blind to your composition, so it can cut off a face or a logo.

Cropping to a supported ratio first puts you in control. You decide what stays in frame, and the feed displays your choice rather than its own guess. Keep the subject centered so it survives the move to a tighter shape.

Crop, size, and keep it sharp

After cropping, resize to Instagram's native size so the app downscales as little as possible: 1080x1350 for 4:5, 1080x1080 for the square, or 1080x1920 for a story. Starting at the right size keeps the upload sharper.

All of it happens on your device. The photo is cropped and never uploaded to a third party, so it stays private until you post it yourself.