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REELS COVER CHECK

See which part of your cover Instagram cuts off

Instagram keeps one 1080 × 1920 cover and crops it three different ways — full screen when the Reel plays, 4:5 in the feed, 3:4 on your profile grid. Text that looks centred in your design app can be sliced in half on your own profile. Drop the image in and watch all three crops at once. Your file never leaves this browser.

Your image is never uploaded. The browser reads it straight off your device and draws every crop locally.
The same cover, three crops
Add a cover to see this crop
Playing full screenWhat a viewer sees before the Reel startsNothing cropped — this is the full image
Add a cover to see this crop
Feed previewScrolling past it in the main feedCrops 285px off the top and 285px off the bottom
Add a cover to see this crop
Profile gridSomeone browsing your profileCrops 240px off the top and 240px off the bottom

Instagram stores one 1080 × 1920 cover and crops it differently in each place, always from the centre. The tightest of the three is the feed preview, which takes 285px off the top and 285px off the bottom — so text that sits outside the marked band survives in one place and disappears in another. Keep anything that has to be read inside it.

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01

Add the cover you are about to use

Use the exact export, not a resized copy. The browser reads it directly off your device, so what you judge here is the real image at real proportions.

02

Type the title you plan to put on it

Cover text is the part that gets cut. Put in the words you actually intend to use and watch where they land in each crop.

03

Keep what matters inside the safe band

The marked band is the area that survives all three crops. Anything outside it exists in one placement and is gone in another.

The three places your cover gets cropped

You upload one image. Instagram shows three different pieces of it, always cropping from the centre:

Full screen, 9:16

Nothing is cropped here — this is your whole image. It is also the only place most creators ever check, which is why the other two catch people out.

Feed preview, 4:5

1080 wide means 1350 tall, so 285 pixels come off the top and 285 off the bottom. This is the tightest of the three and the one that decides your safe zone.

Profile grid, 3:4

1080 wide means 1440 tall, so 240 pixels come off each end. Instagram moved the grid from square to 3:4 in January 2025, so any guide still telling you to design for a 1:1 grid is out of date.

Why the safe-zone numbers you find online disagree

Search for Instagram cover safe zones and you get three different answers: keep the middle 1080 × 1350, or leave 285 pixels clear at each end, or leave 220 at the top and 450 at the bottom. The first two are the same fact said two ways — 1920 minus 1350 is 570, split evenly, is 285 at each end. The third one is a different thing entirely: it is not about cropping, it is about the caption, the buttons, and the profile row that sit on top of the image while the Reel plays. This tool draws the crops, because cropping is what silently removes your text. Interface elements cover the image but do not delete it.

Does my image get uploaded anywhere?

No. The browser reads your file with its own file API and draws every crop locally — the image never travels to a server, ours or anyone's. You can verify it: open your browser's network tab while you use this page and you will see no request carrying the image. An unpublished cover is competitive information and a preview tool has no good reason to hold a copy of yours.

NEXT STEP

A cover that survives the crop still has to earn the tap.

Cropping is the part you can check from the outside. Whether a cover actually gets people to stop needs your own numbers — connect your analytics in Kabo and the account review compares each post against your personal baseline instead of a generic benchmark.

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Frequently asked questions

What size should an Instagram Reels cover be?

1080 × 1920 pixels, which is 9:16. That is the image Instagram stores. Everything else you see — the feed preview and the profile grid — is that same file cropped from the centre, so starting at any other ratio means Instagram crops or letterboxes it before the placement crops even apply.

Why is my Reel cover cut off on my profile?

Because the profile grid is 3:4, not 9:16. At 1080 wide, a 3:4 thumbnail is 1440 tall, so 240 pixels are removed from the top and 240 from the bottom of your 1920-tall cover. Text placed near either end is the first thing to go.

Is the Instagram profile grid square or 3:4?

3:4. Instagram replaced the square 1:1 grid with a taller 3:4 grid in January 2025 and added native 3:4 photo support that May. Guides written before that still say 1:1, which is why covers designed to old advice get cropped in ways their creators did not expect.

Which crop should I design for?

The tightest one, which is the 4:5 feed preview. Keep every word you need read inside the middle 1080 × 1350 of the frame and it survives all three placements. The outer bands are still useful — put background, texture, or a face there — just nothing that has to be legible.

Can I change a Reel cover after posting?

Yes. Open the Reel, choose Edit, then Change Cover, and pick a different frame or upload an image. The crops described here apply the same way to a replacement cover, so it is worth checking the new one before you save it.

Does this tool make a cover for me?

No, and that is deliberate. Plenty of tools generate a cover image. None of them show you what the three Instagram placements do to it afterwards, which is where covers actually fail. Design wherever you like, then check it here before you post.

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