Twitter Header Size 2026 and Every Other X Image Size

The Twitter (X) header size is 1500x500 pixels (a 3:1 ratio), and the recommended profile picture size is 400x400 pixels, shown as a circle on personal accounts. For posts, a single image between 2:1 and 3:4 displays in full, photos can be up to 5MB, and videos can run 140 seconds on a free account or up to 4 hours with Premium.

Those are the numbers most people need. The rest of this cheat sheet covers what X actually crops, the file size and format limits, how multi-image posts are laid out, link card images and video limits, with the source for each figure. Where X’s own pages disagree, we say so rather than picking a number.

X image sizes at a glance

What	Recommended size	Limits	Source
Header (banner)	1500x500 px (3:1)	JPG, PNG or GIF; no animation	X’s help center
Profile photo	400x400 px (1:1)	JPG, PNG or GIF; max 2MB; no animation	X’s help center
Single photo in a post	2:1 to 3:4 shows uncropped	Max 5MB; GIF, JPEG, PNG	X’s help center
Photos per post	Up to 4	Or 1 GIF, or 1 video	X’s developer docs
Animated GIF in a post	Loops only	5MB on mobile, 15MB on web	X’s help center
Link card image (large)	2:1, e.g. 1200x600 px	Min 300x157, under 5MB	X’s Cards documentation
Video, free account	Up to 140 seconds	Max 512MB	X’s help center
Video, Premium (web and iOS)	Up to 4 hours	Max 16GB; 720p above 2 hours	X’s help center
Video, Premium (Android)	Up to 10 minutes		X’s help center

Sizes come from X’s help center pages on uploading profile photos, customizing your profile, posting photos and GIFs, sharing videos and longer videos for Premium, plus X’s developer documentation for media uploads and Cards.

Twitter header (banner) size

X’s help center recommends 1500x500 pixels for the header photo, which it also calls the banner. That’s a 3:1 shape: three times as wide as it is tall. Upload anything smaller and X stretches it, which makes it look soft on large screens. Upload a different shape and X makes you crop it to 3:1 anyway.

The header is never shown exactly as you uploaded it. Three things eat into it:

• Top and bottom crop. X’s help center says that, depending on monitor size and browser, up to 60 pixels at the top and bottom of a correctly sized header can be cropped. Treat the top and bottom 60 pixels as decoration only.
• The profile photo. Your round profile photo sits over the lower-left part of the header on every platform. Anything you put there will be partly hidden.
• Mobile layout. Phones show the header smaller and with the buttons and name placed around it, so small text that reads fine on a laptop becomes unreadable.

A practical safe area: keep logos, faces and any text inside the central band, roughly the middle 1500x380 pixels, and away from the bottom-left corner. Check the result on both a phone and a desktop browser before you move on.

Format and file size. X accepts JPG, PNG and GIF for header images, and its help center says animated GIFs aren’t supported for profile or header images. X lists a 2MB limit for profile photos but doesn’t state a separate one for headers; keeping the header under 2MB as well avoids failed uploads. A high-quality JPG at 1500x500 is usually far smaller than that.

How to change it: go to your profile, tap or click Edit profile, tap the camera icon on the header, choose Upload photo, adjust the crop and save. If the upload fails, X’s help center suggests checking the file type, the size and your browser, and making sure you click Apply before saving.

Twitter profile picture size

X recommends 400x400 pixels for your profile photo. According to X’s help center, profile photos can be JPEG, GIF or PNG files, must be under 2MB, and can’t be animated.

On personal accounts, X crops the square photo into a circle, so the corners disappear. Keep your face or logo centered with breathing room around it. Small text inside a profile photo is almost never readable, because the photo is shown at tiny sizes next to every post and reply.

Square avatars. Businesses on X’s Premium Business subscription get a square avatar alongside the gold checkmark, according to X’s help center. Everyone else gets a circle, including Premium subscribers with a blue checkmark.

A Premium caveat. X’s Premium help page says that changing your profile photo, display name or username removes the blue checkmark until X reviews the account again. If you’re verified, pick your new photo carefully rather than testing several in a row.

For the text side of your profile, our guides to X bio ideas and changing your X username cover the other fields on the same screen.

Image sizes for posts and how X crops them

Single images

X’s help center says that when you post a single photo, images with standard aspect ratios between 2:1 and 3:4 display in full, so what you see in the composer is what people see in the timeline. That covers most phone photos and screenshots:

Shape	Example size	Shown in full?
Landscape 16:9	1600x900 px	Yes
Square 1:1	1200x1200 px	Yes
Portrait 3:4	1200x1600 px	Yes
Panorama wider than 2:1	3000x1000 px	Cropped in the timeline
Tall screenshot taller than 3:4	1080x2340 px	Cropped in the timeline

Images outside that range get a cropped preview, and people have to tap to see the whole thing. If you post tall phone screenshots, crop them to 3:4 yourself so the part that matters is what shows.

Two, three or four images

You can attach up to four photos to a post, according to X’s developer documentation. X doesn’t publish crop sizes for multi-image layouts, but the layouts themselves are easy to see:

• Two images sit side by side as two tall tiles.
• Three images show one tall tile on the left and two smaller ones stacked on the right.
• Four images form a two-by-two grid.

Each tile is cropped to fit, usually from the center, until someone taps to open the image. That makes square or near-square images with the subject in the middle the safest choice. In the iOS and Android apps you can crop each photo before posting, and once you’ve selected two or more you can tap, hold and drag to change the order. Put the strongest image first: in a three-image post, it’s the one that gets the big tile.

File size and formats

According to X’s help center:

• Photos can be up to 5MB.
• Animated GIFs can be up to 5MB on mobile and 15MB on the web.
• X accepts GIF, JPEG and PNG files, and doesn’t accept BMP, TIFF or other formats.
• A GIF has to loop to animate. X’s help center says a GIF that plays only once displays as a static image.

X’s developer documentation also lists WEBP as a supported image format for API uploads, so scheduling tools may accept it. In the apps, JPG for photos and PNG for screenshots with text are the reliable choices.

Watch transparent PNGs. A logo with dark lettering on a transparent background can vanish on a black background. Many people browse X in dark mode, so give transparent graphics a solid background. Our guide to Twitter dark mode explains the display themes.

Twitter video length limit and video sizes

X’s help center gives these upload limits:

Account	Max length	Max file size	Resolution
Free	140 seconds	512MB
Premium, on x.com and iOS	Under 4 hours	16GB	1080p up to 2 hours; 720p from 2 to 4 hours
Premium, on Android	Up to 10 minutes

One honest caveat: X’s main Premium overview page still describes longer uploads as roughly 3 hours and 8GB at 1080p, while the dedicated longer-videos page and the video help page say 4 hours and 16GB. If you’re uploading a very long file, staying under 3 hours and 8GB works under either reading.

For uploads on the web, X’s help center also lists these technical limits:

• Resolution: at least 32x32, at most 1920x1200 (or 1200x1900 for portrait)
• Aspect ratio: anywhere from 1:2.39 to 2.39:1
• Frame rate: up to 40 fps
• Bitrate: up to 25 Mbps

X’s help center adds that videos of 60 seconds or shorter loop automatically, and videos don’t use any of your characters. For upload, MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio is the safest format, which matches what X’s developer documentation recommends.

Limits through the X API are set separately from the app limits, so a scheduling tool may accept files the app wouldn’t, or the other way round. Which length and framing actually perform best is a different question; our guide to the best video length and format for X covers that, and X video views explained covers how views are counted.

Link card image size

When you post a link, X builds a preview card from the website’s own tags. You don’t upload this image on X; the site you link to sets it. According to X’s Cards documentation:

• Summary card with large image: a 2:1 image, at least 300x157 pixels and at most 4096x4096, under 5MB. A 1200x600 image is a safe choice.
• Summary card: a small square 1:1 image, at least 144x144 pixels, under 5MB.
• Accepted formats are JPG, PNG, WEBP and GIF; only the first frame of a GIF is used, and SVG isn’t supported.

X has changed how link cards look several times, so keep any text on the image large and centered. If you link to your own site, set these tags once in its template and every post benefits. Our guide to getting more link clicks on X covers what to write around the link.

Communities and other images

X’s help center says Community admins can add and change a Community’s cover photo, but it doesn’t publish a recommended size. Upload a wide image with the subject in the middle and check how it looks on a phone before you save. The same approach works anywhere X doesn’t publish a size: start wide, keep the subject centered and preview on mobile. For more on running one, see our X Communities guide.

A quick prep checklist

1. Header: 1500x500, important content in the middle band, nothing key in the lower left.
2. Profile photo: 400x400, under 2MB, subject centered for the circle crop.
3. Single post image: between 2:1 and 3:4 so it shows in full; under 5MB.
4. Multi-image post: square-ish images with centered subjects, strongest image first.
5. GIFs: must loop; 5MB on mobile, 15MB on the web.
6. Video: 140 seconds and 512MB without Premium; MP4 with H.264 and AAC.
7. Link cards: a 2:1 image of at least 300x157 on the page you link to.

If you plan to promote a video once it’s posted, our Twitter video views page explains how that service works. Getting the file right comes first, because no promotion fixes a cropped or blurry upload.

Key takeaways

• Twitter header size: 1500x500 pixels; up to 60 pixels at the top and bottom can be cropped.
• Profile picture: 400x400 pixels, under 2MB, shown as a circle except for Premium Business accounts.
• Single images between 2:1 and 3:4 display uncropped; photos can be up to 5MB.
• Up to four photos per post; X crops multi-image tiles, so center your subject.
• GIFs: 5MB on mobile, 15MB on the web; no animated profile or header images.
• Video: 140 seconds and 512MB free, up to 4 hours and 16GB with Premium on web and iOS.
• Link card images are set by the linked site: 2:1, at least 300x157, under 5MB.