How to make an Instagram grid from one photo
- Pick an image with room to cut. Wide or tall pictures with a clear subject and some plain space work best, because every seam between tiles slices through whatever sits on it.
- Choose rows and tile size. The grid is always three posts wide, because a profile is three columns wide. One row makes a banner, three rows a big centerpiece.
- Drag and zoom. The image always fills the whole grid, so moving it only changes which part is kept. Keep faces and words off the white lines.
- Download the zip. You get one JPG per post at 1080 pixels wide, named in posting order:
01-post-first.jpgup to the tile markedpost-last. - Post them in order. Upload 01 first and continue up the numbers, one post at a time, without other posts in between.
Why the last tile goes up first
A profile fills from the top left: each new post takes the first slot and pushes everything else one place along. If you posted the top left piece first, it would end up at the bottom right once the other tiles arrived, and the picture would be scrambled. So the order is reversed. Tile 1 is the bottom right piece of your image, and the final tile you post is the top left piece, which lands in the newest slot.
The same logic explains the other way a grid breaks. A grid only stays aligned while the number of posts after it is a multiple of three. Post one more photo later and every row shifts by one tile. Many accounts plan around that by always posting in sets of three, or by treating the grid as a launch moment that scrolls down over time.
Portrait 4:5 or square tiles
Each tile is 1080 pixels wide, the width Instagram uses for feed posts. Portrait tiles are 1080 by 1350 (4:5), so they take more room than squares in the feed, where each post shows up on its own. Square tiles are 1080 by 1080. Your whole image is cut to these overall sizes:
| Grid | Posts | Portrait 4:5 tiles | Square tiles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 x 1 | 3 | 3240 x 1350 px | 3240 x 1080 px |
| 3 x 2 | 6 | 3240 x 2700 px | 3240 x 2160 px |
| 3 x 3 | 9 | 3240 x 4050 px | 3240 x 3240 px |
| 3 x 4 | 12 | 3240 x 5400 px | 3240 x 4320 px |
| 3 x 5 | 15 | 3240 x 6750 px | 3240 x 5400 px |
If you design the artwork yourself in Canva, Photoshop or Figma, set the canvas to the size in the table, export it as one image and drop it in here: it will fit exactly with zoom at 100%. A smaller image still works, but it is enlarged to fill the grid and the tiles can look soft. The tool tells you when that happens.
The profile grid crops every tile
Since early 2025 the profile page no longer shows posts as squares. It shows each one as a taller 3:4 thumbnail, center cropped, while the post itself still opens in full (Kapwing's guide to the new grid covers the change). A 3:4 frame is narrower than both tile shapes, so on the profile page the sides of each tile are hidden:
| Tile | Posted size | Profile thumbnail shows | Hidden on each side |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portrait 4:5 | 1080 x 1350 px | about 1013 x 1350 px | about 34 px (6% of the width) |
| Square 1:1 | 1080 x 1080 px | 810 x 1080 px | 135 px (25% of the width in total) |
With portrait tiles that is a narrow gap at every vertical seam, small enough that most images still read as one picture. With square tiles, shapes and lines that cross a vertical seam visibly jump, which is why 4:5 is the default here. The shading option in step 3 darkens exactly what the profile hides. As a safe area, keep faces, text and logos at least 40 pixels from the left and right edges of each portrait tile (about 140 for square tiles), and never place small text across a seam.
Keeping the grid intact
- Pinned posts sit at the start of the profile, ahead of everything else, so pinning or unpinning a post moves the whole grid by one place. Decide on pins before you post the tiles.
- Write a caption for each tile or repeat one caption. Each tile is a separate post in followers' feeds, where it is seen on its own, so a tile that makes no sense alone may get little engagement.
- Post the tiles close together. Until the last one is up, the profile shows a half finished image.
- A seamless carousel is a different thing: it splits a wide image into slides inside one post that people swipe through, and it does not touch your profile grid.
Two weeks after the launch, check how the tiles did against each other with the engagement rate calculator: post by post mode shows which piece of the picture people actually reacted to. For the bio above the grid, the bold text generator gives you a bold first line.
Methodology and limits
- Tile sizes
- Every tile is 1080 pixels wide, the width Instagram uses for feed posts. Portrait tiles are 1080 x 1350 (4:5), square tiles 1080 x 1080. The grid is always three tiles wide, the width of a profile.
- Profile crop
- The shading assumes a centered 3:4 thumbnail, as described in Kapwing's guide to the grid change (read October 13, 2026). Hidden width per side = (1080 minus tile height x 3/4) / 2. Instagram does not publish the rule, so it can change it without notice.
- Image handling
- The picture always covers the whole grid (no white bars), so zoom starts at 100% of the size that fills it. Images above 8000 pixels on the long side are reduced first. Tiles are cut from the full resolution image, exported as JPEG at quality 0.92 and zipped without further compression. If the image is smaller than the grid, it is enlarged and the tool warns you.
- Order
- Tiles are numbered from the bottom right (01, post first) to the top left (post last), because a profile fills from the top left.
- Privacy
- The image is opened and cut in your browser. It is never uploaded.
- What it does not do
- It does not post or schedule, make carousels, open HEIC photos, or predict how Instagram compresses a tile on upload. It cannot keep the grid aligned if you post or pin something else between tiles.
Your site