Video aspect ratios and sizes for every platform

What an aspect ratio means

An aspect ratio is the shape of the frame, written as width:height. A 16:9 video is 16 units wide for every 9 units tall. It says nothing about quality. 1280 × 720 and 3840 × 2160 are both 16:9; the second simply has nine times as many pixels.

The ratio matters because each platform has a frame it fills best. Upload a different shape and the player adds black bars, blurred edges or a crop you did not choose.

Video sizes by platform in 2026

The recommendations below are the shapes each platform displays without cropping or padding. Platforms change their players often, so check the upload preview before you publish anything important.

If you only make one version, make it 9:16. It plays full screen on every short-form platform, and the feed players that prefer 4:5 or 1:1 will crop or pad it rather than reject it. If a feed is your main channel, a second 4:5 cut is worth the extra export.

Instagram’s profile grid now shows 3:4 previews. A 9:16 Reel is cropped to that shape on your profile, so keep the subject in the middle of the frame or pick a separate cover image. To make a cover that fits exactly, set the image to 1080 × 1440 with the Image Resizer.

Safe zones for vertical video

On 9:16 platforms the app draws its own interface over your video: the caption and account name along the bottom, the like, comment and share buttons down the right side, and a search or tab bar at the top. Text placed there is covered.

• Top: keep roughly the top 250 pixels (about 13%) clear of text.
• Bottom: keep roughly the bottom 350 to 400 pixels (about 20%) clear. Captions here are the most common thing to get covered.
• Right side: keep about 120 to 150 pixels clear for the action buttons.
• Centre: faces, products and on-screen text belong in the middle 1080 × 1300 or so. That area also survives a crop to 4:5 or 3:4.

These margins differ slightly between TikTok, Reels and Shorts, so treat them as a conservative average rather than exact values.

Choosing an aspect ratio for AI-generated video

AI video models generate a frame of a fixed shape. Most offer 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1, and some add 4:3, 3:4 or 21:9. The ratio is decided when the clip is generated, and it is much harder to fix afterwards than with camera footage, because there is no wider original to crop from.

1. Choose the ratio from where the video will be published.A clip for Shorts, TikTok or Reels should be generated in 9:16. A YouTube intro or website header should be 16:9. Cropping a 16:9 clip to vertical keeps under a third of the frame and usually cuts off part of the subject.
2. Match your starting image to that ratio.In image-to-video, the model animates the image you give it. If the image is a different shape from the output, the model crops it, stretches it or invents the missing edges. Resize or crop the image to the target ratio first, for example 1080 × 1920 for a vertical clip.
3. Describe the framing in your prompt.Words like “vertical framing, subject centered, full body visible” help the model compose for a tall frame. Leave space at the top and bottom if you plan to add captions.
4. Generate a separate version for each shape.When you need both vertical and widescreen, generate both from the same prompt or starting image instead of cropping one into the other.

If you want to compare how different models handle the same ratio, HighReach’s AI video generator runs several of them, including Veo, Kling, Seedance and Sora, from one place and supports both text-to-video and image-to-video. Generating a short test clip in each shape you need is a quick way to see which model frames your subject best before you commit to a longer video.

Before uploading a photo as a starting image, check what it carries besides pixels. Phone photos often contain GPS location and device details in their metadata. The Photo Privacy Checker shows what is there, and the EXIF Cleaner removes it in your browser without uploading the file anywhere.

Converting a video from one ratio to another

There are three ways to change the shape of an existing video, and each gives something up.

Never change width and height independently. Stretching 1920 × 1080 to 1080 × 1920 squeezes everything to about a third of its width. Thumbnails and cover images follow the same rule. The Image Resizer keeps the aspect ratio locked by default, so resize to the target width and crop the rest with an editor if needed.

Frequently asked questions

Calculation note: aspect ratio = width ÷ height, reduced to whole numbers. Crop percentages assume a centered crop at the original height or width. Safe-zone margins are approximate for a 1080 × 1920 frame.