Cover photos and banners are among the most overlooked assets in social media design. They do not generate likes or shares. They rarely go viral. But they are the first large-format visual a visitor encounters on your profile, and they communicate your visual standards before a single post is read.
A well-designed cover photo reinforces your identity and renders correctly on every device. A poorly designed one — stretched, pixelated, or with key content cut off on mobile — undermines credibility before the conversation starts.
This guide covers the correct dimensions, design considerations, and common mistakes for cover photos across every major platform.
Why Cover Photos Are Harder Than They Look
The core challenge is that a single image must display correctly across radically different screen sizes — desktop browsers, tablets, and phones all render the same profile page differently, and the cover image is cropped or scaled to fit each one.
Most platforms centre the image and trim from the edges, but the amount trimmed varies by device. What this means in practice is that there is no single perfect composition. Instead, there is a safe zone — a central region that will always be visible — and a bleed zone around the edges that may or may not appear.
Anything outside the safe zone is bonus space. Anything inside it is guaranteed communication. Design with that distinction in mind from the start.
Cover Photo: 851 × 315 pixels (desktop), 640 × 360 pixels (mobile). Accepted formats: JPG or PNG, up to 30MB.
Facebook displays the cover at different heights on desktop versus mobile. On desktop, the full image is visible. On mobile, the image is cropped to a narrower vertical window — the top and bottom are generally preserved, but the sides may be letterboxed depending on aspect ratio.
The profile picture overlaps the lower-left corner of the cover photo on both desktop and mobile, though the exact overlap differs. As a working rule: avoid placing anything important in the bottom-left region, and keep all critical content in the centre 60% of the canvas.
Event Cover Photo: 1920 × 1005 pixels at 16:9. High-resolution visuals create stronger impact for events.
Group Cover Photo: 1640 × 856 pixels at 1.91:1. Maintain the aspect ratio to avoid cropping.
X (Twitter)
Header Photo: 1500 × 500 pixels at 3:1. Accepted formats: JPG or PNG, up to 5MB.
The X header maintains a relatively consistent presentation across devices. The primary variation is that on mobile, the top and bottom may be slightly cropped to accommodate the profile section below. Keep important content in the centre horizontal band with approximately 80px of margin from the top and bottom edges.
The profile photo on X overlaps the lower-left portion of the header. At the standard 400 × 400 profile photo size, the overlap is substantial enough to obscure content in the lower-left quadrant. Plan for this in your composition — do not place logos or text there.
LinkedIn has two distinct cover photo formats that behave very differently.
Personal Cover Photo (Background Image): 1584 × 396 pixels at 4:1. JPG, PNG, or GIF, up to 5MB.
This is an extreme aspect ratio — nearly four times wider than it is tall — that rewards abstract or pattern-based design over detailed photography. The image crops differently on desktop versus mobile; on mobile, the visible area narrows horizontally and the left and right sides are clipped. Keep all critical content in the centre 50% of the canvas width, with at least 80px from the top and bottom edges.
The profile photo overlaps the lower-left section significantly. On desktop, this removes a roughly circular area in the lower-left. Leave that region free of text and key visuals.
Company Cover Photo: 1128 × 191 pixels at 5.91:1. JPG, PNG, or GIF, up to 5MB.
The company banner is the narrowest format in mainstream social media — less than one-sixth as tall as it is wide. This format cannot carry meaningful photography. It works best as a brand strip: a colour, a tagline, a pattern, or a typographic treatment. Because the image is so short, test across both desktop and mobile before publishing — small rendering differences have a large visual impact at this height.
Article Cover: 1920 × 1080 pixels at 16:9. JPG, PNG, or GIF, up to 5MB.
Profile Cover Photo: 800 × 450 pixels at 16:9. JPG or PNG, up to 20MB. These are minimum dimensions — higher resolution is better.
Board Cover: 600 × 600 pixels at 1:1. JPG or PNG, up to 20MB. Use simple, bold images that represent the board’s theme clearly at small display sizes.
YouTube
Channel Art (Cover): 2560 × 1440 pixels at 16:9. Accepted formats: JPG, GIF, BMP, or PNG, up to 6MB.
YouTube channel art is the most complex cover format in social media because it must work across four distinct display contexts — TV, desktop, tablet, and mobile — each with a different visible area.
The safe zone that is guaranteed to be visible on all devices, including mobile, is a central area of approximately 1546 × 423 pixels out of the full 2560 × 1440 canvas. Keep your channel name, logo, and any tagline entirely within this central region. Use the areas outside it for background design or decorative elements that provide value on larger screens without being essential to the communication.
Twitch
Profile Banner: 1200 × 480 pixels at 5:2. JPG or PNG, up to 10MB. This header appears at the top of a creator’s channel page. Keep important content in the centre horizontal region, with approximately 100px of margin from the top and bottom edges.
Offline Banner: 1920 × 1080 pixels at 16:9. JPG or PNG, up to 100MB. This appears in the video player when the channel is not live. Because it fills the entire video viewport, it is one of the few cover-style formats where edge-to-edge design is actually appropriate.
Profile Banner: 1280 × 384 pixels at 10:3. JPG or PNG, up to 500KB.
The small file size limit is worth noting. 500KB requires deliberate compression — highly detailed photography or images with many fine elements will look visibly compressed. Simple compositions with flat colours and limited gradients work better here.
Subreddit Banner: 4000 × 128 pixels (medium size). JPG or PNG, up to 5MB. This is one of the most extreme aspect ratios in social media — approximately 31:1 for the medium size. It functions almost exclusively as a colour accent or brand stripe rather than a carrier of meaningful imagery. If text is used, it must be large enough to read at this narrow height.
Spotify
Header Image (Banner): 2660 × 1140 pixels at approximately 2.33:1. JPG or PNG, up to 20MB.
Spotify artist profile headers display at full width on desktop and are cropped to a narrower view on mobile. Keep all essential content — artist name, key visual — in the centre 70% of the image horizontally and the centre 60% vertically. The outer regions may be clipped on mobile or at narrower window sizes.
Bluesky
Header Photo: 1500 × 500 pixels at 3:1. JPG or PNG, up to 2MB.
Bluesky’s header dimensions match X (Twitter)’s header format exactly. The same design considerations apply: keep critical content in the centre horizontal band, leave the lower-left clear for the profile photo overlap.
Mastodon
Header (Profile Banner): 1500 × 500 pixels at 3:1. Accepted formats: PNG, JPG, HEIF, WEBP, AVIF, up to 2MB.
Again, the 3:1 format matching X and Bluesky. Mastodon’s broader format support is notable — WEBP and AVIF are accepted alongside the standard formats, which can allow for better compression at equivalent visual quality.
Etsy
Big Shop Banner: 3360 × 840 pixels at 4:1. JPG, PNG, or GIF, up to 1MB.
Mini Shop Banner: 1200 × 300 pixels at 4:1. JPG, PNG, or GIF, up to 1MB.
Both Etsy banner sizes use the same 4:1 aspect ratio as a LinkedIn personal cover, but at different scales. The big banner is the main header on your shop homepage; the mini banner is a more compact option. Because Etsy is a commerce platform, banners should communicate your shop’s identity clearly — product category, visual style, and brand feeling — within the narrow horizontal strip.
Order Receipt Banner: 760 × 100 pixels. JPG, PNG, or GIF, up to 1MB. This appears at the top of printable order confirmations. At this narrow format, only a logo or simple wordmark is realistic.
Discord
Server Banner: 960 × 540 pixels at 16:9. JPG or PNG, up to 8MB. Requires a boosted server (Level 2 or higher). Keep key information centred.
Server Invite Banner: 1920 × 1080 pixels at 16:9. JPG or PNG, up to 8MB. The splash image for invite links. Requires Level 3 boosting.
Common Mistakes Across All Cover Photos
Using the same image across platforms. The aspect ratios are different enough that an image composed for X’s 3:1 header will look dramatically different on LinkedIn’s 4:1 background or YouTube’s 16:9 channel art. Design each cover for its specific platform.
Not testing on mobile. Most social media browsing happens on phones. Your cover may look perfect on a desktop browser and have critical content cropped out on mobile. Check on an actual phone before publishing.
Placing text or logos too close to the edges. Across every platform, the edges of cover photos are the least reliable region — they may or may not be visible depending on screen size, browser width, and platform rendering. Treat the outer 15% of any cover canvas as bleed space only.
Using low-resolution source images. Cover photos are displayed at large sizes on high-resolution screens. Starting with a small image and scaling it up always produces a blurry result. Start at or above the recommended pixel dimensions.
Not accounting for profile photo overlap. On Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and other platforms, the profile photo sits on top of the cover image. The lower-left region is most commonly affected. Always design with the profile photo placement in mind.
Final Thoughts
Cover photos are passive — they sit in the background while other content takes attention. But they are always working, communicating visual quality and attention to detail to every visitor who lands on your profile.
Getting them right is mainly a matter of knowing the specs, understanding the safe zones, and testing across devices before publishing. The dimensions are fixed. The safe zones are predictable. The testing takes five minutes. There is no good reason to leave this to chance.