Twitter image sizes for X: profile, header, post and video

The Twitter dimensions most uploads need are 400 x 400 pixels for a profile picture, 1500 x 500 pixels for a header and 1200 x 675 pixels for a single post image. ProfileTree’s social media team in Belfast works to these sizes on X, and this guide covers every other format, including video and link cards

Twitter dimensions at a glance

The table below holds the Twitter dimensions for every format on X, the platform called Twitter until 2023. Getting the aspect ratio (the proportion of width to height) right first time saves re-exporting files just before a post goes live.

Profile pictures can be JPG, PNG or GIF files. Post images can also be WEBP, a newer format that keeps files small. The limits for images, GIFs and video come from X’s developer documentation on media uploads, which X updates as it changes what accounts can post.

Our social media marketing services cover planning and producing content for each platform, because a graphic made for X rarely fits Instagram or LinkedIn without changes. The sections below explain the reasoning behind each of these Twitter dimensions.

Profile picture and header sizes

The profile picture and header are the first Twitter dimensions to get right. The profile picture sits beside every post and reply you publish, and a cropped logo or a blurred banner is the first thing a potential customer notices on your profile, so these two images deserve the most care.

Upload the profile picture as a 400 x 400 pixel square, which is the size X’s help centre recommends, with a maximum file size of 2 MB. X crops it into a circle automatically, so keep your logo or headshot central with clear space around it, because anything in the corners is cut off. In a busy timeline the picture shows at a small fraction of its upload size, so shrink it to thumbnail size on your own screen to check it.

The header is a 1500 x 500 pixel banner in a 3:1 ratio. X does not publish a separate file limit for headers, so we keep them under 5 MB, the limit for post images, which avoids upload errors. It suits a short service statement or a photograph of your premises, and it works best with very little text, because it sits beside your bio and the bio is where visitors read who you are.

The header safe zone on mobile and desktop

Most guides list the Twitter dimensions for a header and stop there, but the profile picture overlaps the bottom left of the header on phones and on desktop, and on mobile the app’s buttons sit over parts of the image as well. A header that looks right in a design preview can lose its logo or its key line of text once it is live.

Our working rule on client accounts is to keep logos, text and faces inside the centre and right two thirds of the header, and to treat the bottom fifth of the banner, along with a thin strip at the top, as space that may be covered or trimmed. Build a 1500 x 500 pixel template with a circle marked in the bottom left corner where the profile picture lands, and every later header takes minutes to produce. Test the profile picture and the header together on your phone, since that is where most people will see them.

Post image sizes and aspect ratios

Of all the Twitter dimensions, the one you will use most is the single post image at 1200 x 675 pixels, a 16:9 ratio that displays at full width in the timeline on both desktop and mobile. It is the safe default for announcements, screenshots and charts. If a graphic carries fine detail, 1600 x 900 pixels keeps the same ratio and gives the image more pixels to hold up when X compresses it.

X crops very tall and very wide images in the timeline preview, and the crop often removes the part that mattered. A full-length portrait photograph is the usual casualty, because its top and bottom are trimmed until someone taps to open it. Keep single images between 16:9 and 4:5, and reframe extreme portrait or panoramic photographs before posting them. When you plan a series of posts, such as a project walkthrough, decide the crop before you take the photographs, because a rough storyboard with each frame drawn at its final size saves a reshoot.

Multi-image posts and the four-image grid

A post on X can carry up to four photos, or one animated GIF, or one video, according to X’s developer documentation. Two photos sit next to each other, three appear as one large image beside two smaller ones, and four form an even grid.

X crops every one of those layouts from the centre outwards, which is why 1080 x 1080 pixel squares are the safest Twitter dimensions for multi-image posts. A wide or tall photograph in a grid loses its edges, and the subject can end up cut in half. Compose each image so that it works as a square on its own with faces and text in the middle of the frame, and check the finished post on mobile and desktop before it is scheduled.

Vertical and square images for a mobile feed

Mobile use has changed which Twitter dimensions work best for single posts. A 4:5 vertical image at 1080 x 1350 pixels takes up more of a phone screen than a 16:9 horizontal image, so it stays in view for longer as someone scrolls. The format is familiar from Instagram, and it suits accounts whose followers mostly read X on mobile.

The cost is on desktop, where a 4:5 image sits in the column with space on either side and looks smaller than a horizontal one. Business decision-makers reading at a desk are still better served by 16:9, while a consumer audience scrolling at lunchtime is where vertical earns its place.

The 1:1 format sits between the two and suits quote cards, multi-image sets and graphics you also plan to post on Instagram or LinkedIn. Run a few posts in each format and compare the results in your own account analytics, because two weeks of your own figures will tell you more than a general rule.

Video and GIF sizes on X

Twitter dimensions for video follow different rules from still images. X recommends 1280 x 720 pixels for horizontal video, 720 x 1280 pixels for portrait and 720 x 720 pixels for square, encoded with the H.264 video codec (the standard compression format for web video) and AAC audio. Accounts with X Premium or verified status can upload 1080p video and have it play back at 1080p, while other accounts get 720p playback, so exporting above 720p without Premium adds file size without improving what viewers see.

The technical requirements are strict: frame rates must be 60 frames per second or lower, the aspect ratio must fall between 1:3 and 3:1, and the audio must be mono or stereo, not surround sound. Phones often record in HEVC, a newer and more efficient codec, and screen recorders often produce files with a variable frame rate. If an upload fails or plays back badly, re-export it as H.264 at a fixed 30 frames per second, which is the usual fix.

Upload limits for free and Premium accounts

Many older guides, including an earlier version of this one, give 140 seconds and 512 MB as the video limit for a standard account. X’s current developer documentation applies those figures to video sent in direct messages. For video in a post, an account without Premium can upload clips up to 20 minutes long and up to 8 GB in size, and a Premium or verified account can upload up to 125 minutes and 16 GB. Scheduling tools that post through X’s systems can set lower limits of their own, so check yours and confirm the figures in your account settings before planning a long upload, because X revises them from time to time.

Animated GIFs can be up to 15 MB. X’s documentation also recommends keeping a GIF at or below 1280 x 1080 pixels and 350 frames, because larger files are more likely to fail when the post is created even after the upload succeeds. Fewer colours and fewer frames keep a GIF inside those limits without a visible loss of quality. Add captions to every video as well, since many people scroll with the sound off at work and captions make the content usable for anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing.

“A short video is the fastest way to show a customer who they are dealing with, and for a local business in Belfast that is worth more than any amount of copy. Keep it short and true, with a real person in front of the camera; that is the brief for most of the video and social media content ProfileTree produces,” says Ciaran Connolly, founder of ProfileTree. If video is part of a wider plan, our video marketing team can film and edit once and cut versions sized for X, Instagram and YouTube from the same footage.

Link card images and disclosure labels on partnership posts

Link cards are the Twitter dimensions most businesses overlook, yet they decide how your website looks every time it is shared. When someone posts a link to your site on X, the post shows a card (a preview box with an image, a title and a short description) drawn from the page’s metadata. The image comes from the Twitter Card or Open Graph tags, short lines in the page code that tell social platforms which image and text to use. If the tags are missing or point to the wrong image, X shows a plain link or a generic picture.

An image of 1200 x 628 pixels, in a 1.91:1 ratio, displays cleanly in the large image card and is also the size most other platforms use for link previews, so one image serves every share. On a WordPress site, an SEO plugin usually sets these tags for each page, and the image can be chosen in the page editor. Share a test link from a private account after any change to check the card displays as expected.

Disclosure labels follow the same safe zone rules as a header. Where a business pays or gives free products to someone in return for posts, UK advertising rules require the content to be obviously identifiable as advertising, and the Advertising Standards Authority’s guidance for influencers expects the label to be clear and upfront. A “#ad” label placed in a corner of an image, where the profile picture or a mobile button can cover it, may not be visible at all.

Put any label in the post text, and if it also appears on the image, place it in the middle third where nothing covers it. This is general guidance and not legal advice, so check the ASA’s current guidance for your own campaigns.

Why images look blurry on X and how to fix it

Images exported at the correct Twitter dimensions can still look soft once they are live, and the cause is nearly always compression. X shrinks uploads to keep pages loading quickly, and that process affects some file types and designs more than others.

The fix that helps most is to design each graphic at twice its final size and export it at the recommended dimensions. For a 1200 x 675 pixel post image, work on a 2400 x 1350 pixel canvas and scale it down on export, and for a header, design at 3000 x 1000 pixels and export at 1500 x 500. The extra detail survives the scaling and holds up on high-resolution phone screens without pushing the file towards the 5 MB limit.

Compress each image yourself before uploading. Free tools such as TinyPNG and Squoosh reduce file size with very little visible loss, and an image under 1 MB uploads faster and comes through the platform’s own processing in better shape than one close to the limit.

PNG or JPG for logos, text and photographs

The file format changes how X treats an image. JPG produces smaller files for photographs with lots of colour variation, and exporting at 85 to 90 per cent quality gives good results after the platform has processed it. PNG keeps hard edges sharp, which matters for logos, screenshots and any graphic with text on a flat background, because JPG compression leaves visible marks around lettering and geometric shapes. A header that combines a photograph with a logo on top is usually better as a PNG, because the logo is what people look at first.

Alt text and contrast for accessible images

Getting the Twitter dimensions right makes an image display properly, and alt text makes it usable for everyone. Alt text is a short written description of an image that screen readers read aloud for people who are blind or partially sighted. X lets you add it to every image in a post, and it should be standard practice, especially for public bodies and charities with accessibility duties to meet.

Write alt text that describes what the image shows and why it is there, in one or two sentences. Start with the content itself, because the screen reader already announces that it is reading an image. For a chart, describe what the data shows, such as which figure rose and over what period, since “chart showing growth” tells a listener almost nothing.

Text placed on an image needs strong contrast with its background. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the international standard for accessible web content, set a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, and the same ratios work for text on social media graphics. Colour should never carry meaning on its own either. If a graphic uses red and green to show a fall and a rise, add an arrow or a plus and minus sign so that people with colour vision deficiency can read it, and check the design in a free colour blindness simulator.

One template set for X and your other platforms

Twitter dimensions rarely exist on their own, because most businesses on X post the same campaigns elsewhere, and the quickest way to stop sizing being a weekly decision is a single template file with four artboards: 16:9, 1:1, 4:5 and 9:16. Those four ratios cover posts on every major network as well as vertical video and stories, and our guide to social media image sizes gives the exact pixel dimensions for each of the other platforms.

Design the vertical and square versions first and take the 16:9 version from them, because cutting a wide image out of a 4:5 composition is straightforward and stretching a wide design into a tall frame usually means starting again. Keep logos and text inside a margin of about 10 per cent on every edge, so the same file survives whichever crop a platform applies.

Which platforms deserve a place in that template set is a question of strategy. Our full list of social media sites compares over 40 platforms by audience and purpose, so you can work out where your customers spend their time and build assets only for those networks.

Getting organic social media support from ProfileTree

Using the right Twitter dimensions stops images from cropping and blurring, which is the first step in running an account that brings in enquiries. The larger part of the work is deciding what to post and writing it in the language your customers use, then posting consistently enough that they come to know the business.

ProfileTree is a Belfast web design and digital marketing agency, founded in 2011 and based at the McSweeney Centre. We plan, write, design and schedule organic content for businesses across Northern Ireland, Ireland and Great Britain, and we also train in-house teams to run their own accounts. We do not sell paid advertising, so everything we produce is built to keep working without an ad budget behind it.

If you run a business in Northern Ireland and want help with your accounts, see our social media marketing Belfast page for how we work and what a typical engagement covers. Pricing is quoted on request, and the first conversation is about your customers and what you want the account to achieve.

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