Meta's help page for Instagram Stories ads recommends 1080 × 1920 pixels, a 9:16 shape that fills a phone screen from top to bottom, in a JPG or PNG of up to 30 MB; that is the Instagram story size this preset makes. Most photos you might share are not that shape: a landscape shot is wide, and even an upright phone photo is shorter and wider than a full screen. This page helps you resize an image for an Instagram story without squashing it.
It opens Resize image on the Story or Reel tile, so this preset makes a 1080 × 1920 picture: a 9:16 vertical picture. You choose whether the photo fills the whole frame, with its sides cropped, or sits whole on a background colour. Nothing is uploaded; the work happens in your browser.
How to resize an image for an Instagram story
- Press Select images, or drop your photos onto the page.
- Under Size, Story or Reel is already picked. It makes 1080 × 1920.
- Under When the shape is different, pick Fill to cover the screen or Fit to keep the whole photo.
- With Fit, choose a Background colour for the space above and below.
- Press Resize and save. The file name ends in _1080x1920.
The tile list also holds Instagram post (1080 × 1080) and Instagram portrait (1080 × 1350), if you change your mind. For a square feed post, the Instagram post preset opens on that tile, and for a grid of posts across your profile, the Instagram grid maker cuts one picture into nine tiles.
What Fill and Fit do to a 9:16 image
A 9:16 image is very tall: the Instagram story dimensions are 1920 pixels high for every 1080 across. How much of your photo survives Fill depends on its shape, because Fill keeps the middle and cuts the sides.
| Your photo | With Fill | With Fit |
|---|---|---|
| Upright phone photo, 3:4 | About the middle 75 % of the width | The whole photo, with bands above and below |
| Landscape photo, 4:3 | About the middle 42 % of the width | The whole photo, small, with tall bands |
| Wide shot, 16:9 | About the middle third of the width | The whole photo as a thin strip |
| Already 9:16 | All of it, nothing cut | All of it, no bands |
So Fill works well for upright photos, and Fit is often better for a landscape photo to story, where Fill would throw away most of the picture. Stretch is there too, but it pulls the photo out of shape, so leave it for textures.
Screenshots are a special case. Many phone screenshots are already tall, some even taller than 9:16. Fill then trims a little from the top and bottom instead of the sides, and Fit adds thin bands at the sides. Either way, very little of a screenshot is lost.
Make a landscape photo work as a story
With Fit, the photo sits in the middle and the rest of the screen takes the Background colour. Choose it with care, because on a landscape photo it fills most of the frame. The space is always one plain colour: this tool does not put a blurred copy of the photo behind it.
- Black or Ink makes a calm frame and lets the photo stand out.
- White suits bright, airy photos and printed-look designs.
- Grey sits between the two and suits black-and-white photos.
- The + swatch takes any colour, so you can match a brand colour or a colour in the photo.
- Transparent is there as well; it saves as PNG or WebP.
If you would rather fill the screen but choose which strip of a wide photo to keep, crop it yourself first. Open Crop image, pick 9:16 under Shape, drag the tall box over the part that matters, and press Crop. Then resize the cropped picture here: it is already 9:16, so Fill changes only the size.
The bands that Fit leaves above and below a landscape photo are also useful room for words. Make the story picture here with a colour that suits your text, then write on the empty space with Add text to image.
Several stories, one run
Select up to 100 pictures to turn a whole set into story pictures. Every one comes out at the Instagram story size, 1080 × 1920, with the same Fill or Fit choice and the same background, and Save all as ZIP saves them in one file. The button counts them, for example Resize 6 pictures.
One setting applies to the whole run. If your set mixes upright and landscape photos, it can pay to make two runs: the upright ones with Fill, the landscape ones with Fit. After the first run, New picture takes you back to choose the next set, and Change settings returns to the panel with everything kept if you want to adjust and run the same pictures again.
On the done screen, each row shows a small preview of the new picture with its size, so you can spot one that would look better with the other choice before you post it. Every file keeps its original name with _1080x1920 on the end.
Save as Original keeps a JPG as a JPG, and an iPhone HEIC photo becomes a JPG. JPG and WebP are saved at high quality, and PNG keeps every pixel. Making a small picture this big makes it softer, and the panel warns you when that happens.
Private, free and in your browser
Your photos are opened and resized inside this browser tab. They are never uploaded, and our server does no picture work. Each saved picture is drawn fresh, so it carries no location, camera or date details from the original.
There is no account, no cost and no watermark, and image tools are not counted in the daily limit, which applies to document conversions only. It works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. For a video clip in the same tall shape, resize video for TikTok makes a 1080 × 1920 video, also in your browser.
Resize your story picture now
To resize an image for an Instagram story, keep the Story or Reel tile for 1080 × 1920, then pick Fill for a full screen or Fit to keep the whole photo on a colour. Crop to 9:16 first when you want to choose the strip yourself.
It is free and private. Select your pictures above to start.
Source: Meta Business Help Centre: Design requirements for Instagram Stories ads, checked 22 October 2026.
