The Perfect X (Twitter) Header Size & Best Practices (2024 Update)

twitter header size

If you’ve ever struggled with Twitter header dimensions you’re not alone…

Even though Twitter has provided guidelines for their header photo size, it’s still ridiculously difficult to get the sizing just right. That’s because Twitter does this funny thing where they chop off part of your cover photo even if you follow the recommended guidelines.

In addition, you also need to worry about how your header photo scales across different screen resolutions.

The good news is we’ve solved this problem and I’m here to help you do the same.

In this article, we’ll cover in detail what Twitter header size you should be using along with some guidelines to ensure that it displays properly.

Bonus: We’ve integrated Twitter’s header dimensions and safe zones into our graphic design tool. Create a Twitter header for free!

Twitter’s guidelines for header photos

Before we dive into some optimization tactics, let’s go over Twitter’s recommended guidelines for header images.

  • Header photo recommended dimensions are 1500px by 500px, which has an aspect ratio of 3:1
  • Photos can be in any of the following formats: JPG, GIF, or PNG. (Twitter does not support animated GIFs for profile or header images.)
  • Twitter recommends that profile photos and banner image file sizes should be under 2MB

Here’s the problem…

Even if you follow these guidelines, your header image may not look right after you’ve uploaded it. That’s because you need to account for your profile picture and the “invisible area” around your profile picture.

In reality, the recommended Twitter header dimensions actually look like this:

Twitter Header Dimensions & Safe Zones

Let’s cover the profile picture area and the invisible area in a bit more detail.

Accounting for your profile picture

Ensuring your Twitter profile picture doesn’t interfere with your header photo is actually more complicated than you think. That’s because the position of your profile picture in relation to the cover photo actually changes depending on your device and screen’s resolution.

For example, here’s a screenshot of a cover photo with my resolution at full width on a desktop:

Twitter header image on desktop

When the Twitter header is displayed at full width on a computer, the profile picture is at it’s largest and occupies more of the header photo

However, as I scale down my resolution, look at how the profile picture changes location and moves below the header image and exposes more of the header image where our safe zone resides.

Twitter header banner at reduced width

When the Twitter header is displayed on smaller screens, the profile picture moves down and scales down.

Additionally, we have to look at how the Twitter banner will look on a mobile device. Here is the Twitter header image displayed on the Twitter app on the iPhone X.

Twitter Header Photo on Mobile

When the Twitter banner is displayed on a mobile device, the profile picture slides down in position and scales down. This allows for most of the header image to be visible.

The Best Twitter Header Size

Best Twitter Header Image Size

Here’s what we recommend for your Twitter header dimensions:

  • Use the recommended banner sizing of 1500px by 500px
  • Leave ample space on the bottom left corner to account for profile picture and different screen resolutions
  • Leave some empty space at the top and bottom of your header photo
twitter banner photo crop

I recommend leaving a bit of space on the top and bottom of your banner photo because in Twitter’s guidelines they state that there’s a possibility of some minor cropping.

Check out our video where we break it down for you:

How to Make a Twitter Banner with Templates

We know just how frustrating it can be to get the sizing of your Twitter header just right. That’s why we’ve built these safe zones directly into our Twitter header maker.

You can choose from a variety of professional pre-made Twitter header templates that match your needs.

When you create Twitter header images, we cleverly display the profile picture and invisible areas that you need to watch out for. You can even toggle this on and off.

Now you’ll never have to worry about Twitter header sizing ever again!

Conclusion

As you can see, optimizing your Twitter header isn’t as easy as you’d think. We hope this guide helps clear things up and allows you to perfectly size your Twitter banner image without running into any issues.

About the author: Nick Le is the marketing manager at Snappa. He has published several articles relating to social media marketing.

  • Deb. Thurston OCDS August 30, 2016, 10:08 pm

    This is positively fantastic. I have a new 4K UHD laptop and find Twitter has shifted significantly with my new aspect ratio. Thanks for the coaching!

  • Christopher Gimmer August 31, 2016, 12:04 am

    Glad you liked the post 🙂

  • Robert @ Gr8 Travel Tips January 11, 2017, 11:36 am

    Thanks for the info and instructions Christopher. Will give it a try! Rob

  • Belinda February 2, 2017, 7:18 am

    Thanks for the post, I am just trying one now

  • フィリップ オルソン February 15, 2017, 2:41 pm

    the picture is 1500×500 but it still cuts away 30% of the image can some1 give me the real freaking dimensions?

  • Robert Z February 16, 2017, 4:30 am

    Would have been nice if you included the actual dimensions of the image and safe zones instead of just pushing people towards snappa. Lame

  • Robert Z February 16, 2017, 4:33 am

    P.S: Thanks for the post. For the people who don’t want to join snappa just to use this info, right click and save the image below the following text “In reality, the recommended Twitter header dimensions actually look like this:”. Cheers

  • aRobinsonWriter March 17, 2017, 7:03 pm

    Good thinking; I appreciate that.

  • Kaori April 1, 2017, 4:01 pm

    That is the real dimensions. When the photo is displayed on mobile it shows the part that is normally cut off. It really is just annoying how Twitter does the cover photos.

  • Randy May 15, 2017, 6:34 am

    RIGHT?!

  • Tommy Walker June 2, 2017, 2:05 pm

    1500 x 500 still does not work. Twitter images go through some terrible compression and my images come out looking fuzzy and not crisp.

  • RedR3d10 ツ June 15, 2017, 6:02 am

    lol 1263×421 i think

  • Justaguy (JT) June 30, 2017, 4:11 am

    I am on Windows 10 PC. So what I did was use the snip tool to take a picture of the actual area on my Twitter page. Then when I went to my photo folder… it gave the dimensions of 1350 x 320 …so that is what I will use

  • Justaguy (JT) June 30, 2017, 5:02 am

    After some experimenting with the “hidden area”… 1350 x 320 works ok for VIEWING AREA. But to account for hidden area at top and bottom…. I found I needed to add roughly 65 pixels to both top and bottom….. I just used Paint program and added all that in black. So the final picture was 1350 x 450 with 130 being blank space divided between top and bottom as shown in this pic. This is the best I could figure for now…. your mileage may vary. LOL https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8135898e02f0009af221e694af2e8297f2275dd7b673494d6f9a47affe1269c.jpg

  • Justaguy (JT) June 30, 2017, 5:04 am

    it doesn’t HAVE to be these exact sizes….. but something with this same length / height ratio should also work (But if it’s too small… it will be blurry when blown up to this size)

  • Justaguy (JT) June 30, 2017, 5:13 am

    my post above might help you. And your pics may be fuzzy if they are too small… they will get blurry / fuzzy when blown up to Twitter dimensions

  • Christopher Gimmer July 10, 2017, 11:16 am

    Hi Tommy. Twitter images will go through compression no matter what. 1500 x 500 is still the correct size. All images will be worse quality after they’re uploaded no matter what size you use.

  • OmniSpace Studios July 19, 2017, 12:00 pm

    That and they’ve made it a responsive image instead of handling it adaptively so they’re compressing it for 1500 x 500 but many browsers today stretch well beyond that or have resolutions (4k/5k monitors) that will innately show worse resolution if you pull you’re browser out beyond say 1200px which sounds like a large px width but for my 5k mac its actually quite small. Natural human tendency is to span the browser at least 80% of the screen to focus on things, which for me that results in a pixel width of about 1900 px. That may seem insanely large but on this desktop its relatively ordinary. The compression algorithm could really use an update or have a listener for different device types. At their current user base this clearly was the best thing they could come up with. Facebook has the same problems, thus why many designers/photographers are going to websites like Behance. For companies with hundreds of millions in cash flow this solution is kinda disappointing.

  • Sam Watson August 7, 2017, 1:07 pm

    “Twitter does this funny thing…” it’s not funny, it’s just bloody annoying. How about they tell us the right size and we upload that size? Radical…

  • Humberto L Rodriguez December 2, 2017, 7:20 am

    guys stop complaining he did a good thing here, you can open the image where it shows the guidelines in a new tab the picture he provided is 1500 by 500 all you have to do is throw it in photoshop and work based off of that.

  • Daniel Scott December 31, 2017, 8:47 am

    Thanks

  • dashaun January 22, 2018, 4:56 pm

    Thanks for the post, and the free service!

  • Jeff Smith February 4, 2018, 1:44 am
  • Trish February 11, 2018, 8:04 pm

    Perfect for 2018?
    But Twitter profile pictures changed from squares to circles way back in 2017.

  • Tom Wraith March 2, 2018, 8:33 am

    make an image size 1662w and 440h. then add the image you need inside that as, 1341 w and 353 h, the outer bigger size is the part what will go over screen ! leaving the small size “your image in the center” i am using photoshop and saving in jpeg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4be4b4d852511fb015fbb62748332e7446e0f769fde4d8819816586f68c1139.jpg

  • Tom Wraith March 2, 2018, 8:38 am

    make an image size 1662w and 440h. then add the image you need inside that as, 1341 w and 353 h, the outer bigger size is the part what will go over screen ! leaving the small size “your image in the center” i am using photoshop and saving in jpeg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4be4b4d852511fb015fbb62748332e7446e0f769fde4d8819816586f68c1139.jpg

  • myelbowisitchy March 17, 2018, 9:20 pm

    The ‘invisible area’ is there to accommodate screen orientation changes on mobile devices. In landscape orientation it is cropped but in portrait orientation it isn’t.

  • Cityy car April 3, 2018, 5:33 am

    I have solved this problem just by doing some simple steps:
    1) Make a stylish background or simple white with size of 1500×500 .
    2) Now make cover for your twitter account and design it as you want with the size of 1500×365 .(NOTE:Leave the area for your profile picture as you know it will be invisibel when you upload your cover )
    3) Now move or copy your designed cover to the (1step) background and set it in the center.

    And you have just done !
    Sorry for bad English.
    cheers !

  • Em Jay April 16, 2018, 10:43 am

    It is asking to login. I don’t want to create an id for a trial. I will use free online tools or use photoshop.

  • Johnny Socks June 1, 2018, 2:11 pm

    This is lame, because I did my header at 1500×500 like this says and it looks like utter trash when I go to my profile because it got scaled up hella big so it’s all blurry and pixelated.

  • Jacob Kachelhofer June 12, 2018, 11:08 am

    That moment when the commenters are way more helpful than the article itself…

  • Jacob Kachelhofer June 12, 2018, 11:13 am

    I first learned this trick on facebook, but it seems to work on Twitter as well. To reduce the negative effects of compression, upload the image in double the dimensions. 4x works too, but it needs to be 2x or 4x. So in the case of Twitter banners, upload an image that is 3000 x 1000 and it will not look nearly as fuzzy.

  • Jacob Kachelhofer June 12, 2018, 11:15 am

    Also, try uploading images that are 2x or 4x the specified dimensions to reduce the loss of resolution fidelity.

  • Alex Sage June 17, 2018, 5:49 pm

    Those are wrong dimentions!

  • Jill July 17, 2018, 1:16 pm

    Thanks for the very helpful tutorial!

  • Aryan Nava July 23, 2018, 12:46 pm

    I agree with you, that’s why I used 1500 x 700

  • Ev4sIoN August 28, 2018, 6:41 am

    My thoughts exactly, good looking out!

  • stephanie wilson September 24, 2018, 3:26 am

    i don’t understand measurements like pixels can’t you just say what it should be in inches or something w/ out the computer jargon?

  • Frog Nart October 15, 2018, 7:03 am

    The whole problem is. Twitter changes every image to a JPG format. To force Twitter into making it a PNG, change the opacity of the image to 99%.

  • Incloud Design November 23, 2018, 12:17 pm

    Thanks for this but no matter how much I play with sizes including these the image although fits perfectly looks horrible in comparison to the original upload. You’d think these social media lords would want people to have nice looking pages and not make it necessary to have photo editing experience to have a decent profile. Idiots if you ask me!

  • GetItGoing November 23, 2018, 10:46 pm

    Not everyone has an expensive image editor like Photoshop to “throw” it into.

    He deliberately left out the necessary pixel dimensions. Don’t white-knight for the guy. Wow.

  • Isaac Bjørn December 10, 2018, 7:24 am

    And how does it look 1500/700 compared to 1500/500

  • Mike Poynton January 5, 2019, 10:40 pm

    If you make it 3000 x 1000 you’ll have a much sharper image after Twitter compression. Double it on Facebook too. It’s night and day.

  • Nick Le March 18, 2019, 2:53 pm

    Thanks for the suggestion Mike, we’ll have to look into this!

  • Lee Keels April 6, 2019, 8:28 pm

    This isn’t an article…it’s an ad.

  • Angcrad April 8, 2019, 5:30 pm

    Throw it into The Gimp then (free, open sourced alternative to photoshop)
    Maybe the article was updated after your comment, but I can clearly see a diagram where from a 500*1500px canvas, you reserve a 53*1500px area at the top and at the bottom (this area will be hidden once the header is uploaded) and a 430*172 px area where your profile pic may be located

  • Peter Thompson April 11, 2019, 7:01 pm

    Stephanie, if this is still a question for you, reply back and I’ll share what I know.

    Cheers.

  • stephanie wilson April 12, 2019, 12:55 am

    i would really appreciate that. thank you very much

  • Peter Thompson April 12, 2019, 1:04 am

    For sure!

    Do you understand what a pixel is?

  • stephanie wilson April 12, 2019, 2:14 am

    not really. sorry

  • Schorsch April 17, 2019, 5:36 am

    This acutally helped me more than the article

  • Angel July 23, 2019, 7:28 pm

    You’re going to need to update this again now that Twitter has shrunk cover photos

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