Straight answer: for feed images, use 1080 x 1080 px square or 1080 x 1350 px vertical, not the old 1200 x 627 landscape banner shape. For native video, square (1080 x 1080) or vertical (1080 x 1350 or 1080 x 1920) beats widescreen 16:9 in the LinkedIn feed almost every time. Get the pixels close and stop obsessing over the last decimal point, because LinkedIn compresses everything you upload anyway.
I get asked this question more than almost anything else, usually by someone who has just watched their beautifully designed 1920 x 1080 video get letterboxed into a tiny strip in the middle of the feed with black bars on either side. It happens weekly. So here is the full breakdown, with the numbers I use for my own posts and for client accounts.
LinkedIn image sizes, format by format
LinkedIn does not use one size for everything. It uses different crops depending on where the image sits, and if you design for the wrong one, LinkedIn will crop your face out of a headshot or slice a logo in half without warning you first.
- Standard feed image (single photo post): 1200 x 1200 px works, but 1080 x 1080 px square is the safest bet because it is what LinkedIn’s own upload tool defaults to and it displays at full size without cropping on both desktop and mobile.
- Vertical feed image: 1080 x 1350 px (a 4:5 ratio). This is the one most people ignore and it is the one that takes up the most scroll real estate on a phone, which is where most of your audience is reading you at 7am with a coffee.
- Landscape/link preview image: 1200 x 627 px. This is the old standard, still used when you share a link with a preview thumbnail rather than a native upload.
- Carousel or document post (PDF): 1080 x 1080 px per slide, up to 300 pages, file size capped at 100MB. These consistently outperform single images in my own data because LinkedIn rewards dwell time, and a carousel keeps a thumb on the screen for longer.
- Personal profile banner: 1584 x 396 px.
- Company Page cover image: 1128 x 191 px, a much tighter, wider strip than most people expect.
- Company logo: 300 x 300 px, displayed as a circle, so keep anything important away from the corners.
- Profile photo: minimum 400 x 400 px, though it displays at 200 x 200, so do not upload anything smaller or it will look soft and cheap next to everyone else’s crisp headshot.
I have a full pixel-by-pixel chart with every one of these plus the crop-safe zones over on my dedicated post on ideal LinkedIn image sizes, if you want something to bookmark and hand to a designer.
LinkedIn video sizes, and why widescreen quietly loses
Here is the part most guides gloss over. LinkedIn’s technical limits are generous: videos can run from 3 seconds up to 10 minutes for most accounts (longer if you have been approved for extended limits), file size up to 5GB, and resolution anywhere from 256 x 144 up to 4096 x 2304. Aspect ratio can legally range from 1:2.4 all the way to 2.4:1. That is an enormous amount of freedom, and it is exactly why so many people get it wrong. They use the freedom to upload the same 16:9 file they made for YouTube.
The sizes that perform in the feed:
- Square, 1080 x 1080 px (1:1): the safest, most reliable shape. Takes up more vertical space than landscape on both desktop and mobile without needing black bars.
- Vertical, 1080 x 1350 px (4:5): my best performer for talking-head clips and short tips. It fills the phone screen almost edge to edge.
- Full vertical, 1080 x 1920 px (9:16): works, but treat it carefully on LinkedIn specifically, more on that in a second.
- Widescreen, 1920 x 1080 px (16:9): fine for a recorded webinar you are archiving, weak for a native feed post, because it shrinks down and forces the viewer to zoom in on a phone.
The letterboxed webinar clip
A client of mine, a B2B consultancy in Manchester, ran a 45-minute webinar and cut it into six clips for LinkedIn, all exported at 1920 x 1080 straight out of Zoom. First clip got 812 views and nine comments, which felt fine until we compared it against a competitor posting similar content in square format. We re-cropped the next clip to 1080 x 1080, kept the caption strategy identical, posted at the same time of day, same day of the week. That one hit 2,400 views and 41 comments within five days. Same speaker, same message, same hook in the first line. The only variable that changed was the shape of the video on the screen. That is not a coincidence I am willing to write off as luck, because we repeated it across three more clips with the same pattern holding.
The uncomfortable bit nobody tells you
Everyone in this space parrots the same TikTok-and-Instagram advice: “vertical video wins, always shoot 9:16.” On LinkedIn, that advice is only half true, and treating it as gospel will cost you reach. LinkedIn is still, disproportionately, a desktop platform during working hours. People are watching your posts at their desks between 9am and 5pm on a landscape monitor, not lying on the sofa scrolling a phone vertically the way they do on Instagram in the evening. A tall 9:16 video on a wide desktop screen sits in a narrow column with huge empty margins either side, which looks amateurish and undermines the “professional” tone LinkedIn users expect from the platform. Square and 4:5 hold up far better across both desktop and mobile, which is exactly why I default to those two shapes for almost everything I publish now, and it is a distinction that gets flattened into “just go vertical” in nearly every other guide on this topic.
Five-step check before you hit post
- Export at 1080 x 1080 (square) or 1080 x 1350 (vertical), not whatever your camera app defaulted to.
- Watch the first three seconds with the sound off. If nothing tells the viewer what this is about without audio, re-edit before you upload, because most people scroll past muted.
- Check the file size. Keep video under 200MB where you can, LinkedIn will accept up to 5GB but slower compression on their end can mean a delayed, blurry preview while it processes.
- Look at your thumbnail frame. LinkedIn grabs a still from partway through the clip by default and it is very often an unflattering half-blink. Upload a custom thumbnail if the option is there.
- Preview on your own phone before publishing, not just on your desktop editor, because that is where most of your audience will see it first.
Tools that make the sizing painless
You do not need Photoshop or a video editing degree to hit these dimensions consistently. I use PosterMyWall for quick square and vertical graphics when I need something turned around in ten minutes, and I have written up how I use PosterMyWall for graphics and short video in more detail elsewhere on this site. For repurposing longer video into short, correctly-sized clips, Wibbitz is the tool I have leaned on for client work, and I broke down exactly how to turn a long recording into a five-minute marketing video with Wibbitz if you want the walkthrough.
If you are already using AI to draft your captions, it is worth pairing that with the right visual format rather than treating them as separate jobs. I cover this in how to use AI for LinkedIn content without it sounding like a LinkedIn post about LinkedIn posts, because a well-sized video with a lazy, AI-flavoured caption still underperforms a mediocre video with a sharp one.
Why the format matters more than people admit
Sizing is not vanity. LinkedIn’s own feed algorithm favours dwell time, comments in the first hour, and completed video views, and every one of those signals is affected by how much screen space your post physically occupies. A square image that fills the frame gets more thumb-stopping power than a landscape one that leaves grey space top and bottom. I go into the full mechanics of what moves the algorithm, format included, in 25 LinkedIn algorithm hacks that work in 2026, and format sizing sits inside the top five things I would change first if a client’s posts were underperforming.
One last plain truth: getting the pixel dimensions exactly right will not save a boring post. I have seen perfectly sized square videos with flat scripts get 200 views, and slightly imperfect vertical clips with a strong hook get 20,000. Size gives your content a fair chance to be seen. It does not do the job of making the content worth watching. Get both right and you stop wondering why your competitor’s posts travel further than yours.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best LinkedIn image size for a single feed post in 2026?
1080 x 1080 px square is the safest choice because it displays without cropping on both desktop and mobile. If you want a taller post that takes up more scroll space on phones, use 1080 x 1350 px vertical instead.
Does vertical video work on LinkedIn the way it does on TikTok or Instagram?
Not to the same degree. LinkedIn is used heavily on desktop during working hours, and a full 9:16 vertical video looks cramped with wide empty margins on a landscape monitor. Square (1080 x 1080) or 4:5 vertical (1080 x 1350) tends to hold up better across both desktop and mobile on LinkedIn specifically.
What is the maximum video length and file size for LinkedIn?
Most accounts can upload video from 3 seconds up to 10 minutes long, with a file size cap of 5GB and resolution ranging from 256 x 144 up to 4096 x 2304. Some accounts with extended limits can go longer, but for a standard feed post, aim to keep it well under that ceiling for faster processing.
Why does my LinkedIn video get letterboxed with black bars?
That happens when you upload a widescreen 16:9 file (like 1920 x 1080) straight from a recorded webinar or Zoom call into the feed, where square and vertical formats fill more of the screen. Re-crop to 1080 x 1080 or 1080 x 1350 before uploading and the black bars disappear.
