Carousel Design Size and Limits in 2026: Instagram, LinkedIn, X and TikTok

The safest carousel design size in 2026 is 1080 x 1350 pixels, a 4:5 portrait, with key text kept in the centre of each slide. The limits differ more than the sizes: Instagram takes up to 20 items, LinkedIn carousels are PDF documents (100 MB and 300 pages at most, every page the same size), X allows only 4 photos per post, and TikTok photo posts take up to 35 photos.

Two of those numbers are often misreported. LinkedIn has no official slide size, so every "LinkedIn carousel size" you read is a recommendation. X has no carousel object at all.

Disclosure: Oakgen is ours. Its carousel tool exports all four sizes, and we say so where it's relevant. Everything else on this page works in any design tool.

Carousel sizes and limits: the master spec table

Last verified 22 October 2026. "Official" means we read it on the platform's own page that day. "Recommended" means it comes from third-party guides, not from the platform.

Copy it; keep the verified date with it.

Instagram carousel size in 2026

The 20-item limit

Meta's developer documentation says it plainly: "Carousels are limited to 20 images, videos, or a mix of the two." That page covers publishing through the API. For the app, the jump from 10 to 20 was reported in August 2024 as a gradual rollout. We could not load Instagram's own help-centre page on carousels, so the in-app figure here rests on those press reports plus Meta's developer docs, which both say 20.

One trap: some schedulers cap carousels lower than Instagram does. Sprout Social's own carousel guide (13 May 2026) says "Sprout users are limited to 10 images in Instagram carousels at this time." If your tool refuses slide 11, that is the tool's limit, not Instagram's.

The first slide decides the crop

The same Meta page says: "Carousel images are all cropped based on the first image in the carousel, with the default being a 1:1 aspect ratio." Put a square cover in front of portrait slides and the portrait slides lose their top and bottom. The fix is boring and reliable: every slide, cover included, at the same pixel size.

Ratios and pixel size

For posts published through the API, Meta's IG User Media reference is specific: the aspect ratio "Must be within a 4:5 to 1.91:1 range", width runs from 320 to 1440 pixels (scaled up or down outside that), "File size: 8 MB maximum", and the format is JPEG. Those are official for API publishing. We could not read Instagram's help page, so the in-app limits are not confirmed from Instagram itself. Sprout Social's May 2026 guide lists square (1:1), horizontal (1.91:1) and vertical (4:5) and suggests "1080 x 1080 pixels" for images. 1080 x 1350 at 4:5 is the portrait size most guides settle on, and 4:5 is the tallest ratio in Meta's API range.

The 3:4 grid problem

In January 2025 Instagram switched profile grid thumbnails from squares to taller rectangles. Adam Mosseri announced it on his Story, and press coverage at the time (for example RouteNote, 20 January 2025) described "rectangles" without giving a ratio or pixel size. The 3:4 figure comes from marketing guides such as Kapwing's, not from Instagram, and so does the 1080 x 1440 size some of them suggest.

What this means for a 4:5 cover: 3:4 is slightly narrower than 4:5. If the grid shows a centred 3:4 crop of a 1080 x 1350 slide, about 34 pixels (33.75) come off each side. That is our arithmetic, not an Instagram spec, but it explains the rule: keep the headline and any logo away from the left and right edges of slide 1. The Instagram Reels covers guide covers the same grid issue for Reels.

API details that matter if a scheduler posts for you

Meta's publishing docs say "JPEG is the only image format supported," so a scheduler may convert your PNGs; check the posted text is still crisp. The same docs give two post caps (100 per 24 hours in one section, 50 in the carousel section), and a carousel counts as one post. The IG User Media reference adds that "Reels cannot appear in carousels".

LinkedIn carousel size: a carousel is a PDF document

LinkedIn's "carousel" is a document post. You upload a file and LinkedIn shows it one page at a time. Its help page (answer 97459) lists the official rules:

• "The following file types are supported: PPT, PPTX, DOC, DOCX, and PDF."
• "The file size cannot exceed 100MB and 300 pages."
• "PDFs with multiple sized pages must be fit to the same page size."
• "Videos and other animations in documents aren't supported and will display as static images instead."
• "Please ensure that the PDFs you upload have secure hyperlinks."

That page does not use the word "carousel", and it publishes no slide size. Any "official LinkedIn carousel size" you see elsewhere is a third-party recommendation, usually 1080 x 1350 (4:5) or 1080 x 1080.

Carousel PDF size: what actually goes wrong

The 100 MB cap is rarely the problem. Mixed page sizes are: a cover exported at one size and the rest at another get fitted to one size, which can add borders or shrink pages. Over-compression is the other one; squeezing a 10-page deck to make it "lighter" softens the text for no gain.

LinkedIn does not publish the resolution it renders document pages at, so test empirically: preview on a phone, zoom on the smallest text, and re-export if it is soft.

Multi-image posts are a different format

LinkedIn also has multi-image posts, which are not documents. Its help page a527229 says "You can upload a maximum of 20 photos in a multi-photo post" and "Images will render a max ratio of 4:5 (e.g., 640 (w) x 800 (h) pixels)." General photo rules on that page: a 5 MB upload limit and ratios from 3:1 to 4:5. If you want the page-by-page swipe people mean by "LinkedIn carousel", use a PDF.

X carousel: up to 4 photos, and longer means a thread

X has no carousel object. Its API media docs say: "A Post may include up to 4 photos, 1 animated GIF, or 1 video." Images can be JPG, PNG, GIF or WEBP at 5 MB or less; animated GIFs up to 15 MB.

X publishes no pixel size for stills, and multi-image posts are cropped in the timeline, so keep the important part centred.

If your idea needs more than four frames, cut it to four (cover, two points, takeaway), run it as a thread with the hook in the first post, or post the cover and link to the full version elsewhere. We found no credible 2026 data on multi-image performance on X, so we won't guess whether four images beat one there.

TikTok photo carousel size

TikTok's Content Posting API reference for photo posts says photo_images is "An array containing up to 35 photo content URLs." Via the API, photo post titles can be 90 UTF-16 runes and descriptions 4,000. TikTok's in-app help page redirected when we tried to read it; third-party sources, including Metricool and Kapwing, report the same 35 in the app.

TikTok's media transfer guide sets the image rules for the API: supported formats "WebP" and "JPEG", picture size "Maximum 1080p", and "Maximum of 20MB for each image". PNG is not on that list, so a tool posting through the API needs JPEG or WebP. The guide gives no aspect ratio; 1080 x 1920 (9:16) is the common recommendation to fill the screen, and it sits within the 1080p cap.

Before you plan TikTok around photo posts, look at the data. Metricool's 2026 TikTok study (press release, 12 May 2026; 2,314,756 posts from 92,000+ accounts, comparing January to February 2025 with the same months of 2026) found that video generated "5x more reach and 6x more interactions than images or carousels," while image and carousel posting volume grew nearly 140% year on year. These are Metricool's measures, not TikTok's. On average, video outreaches photo posts there; a photo carousel can still suit a list, just don't expect video-level reach.

The safe master size, and why

If you design once and post to several platforms, design at 1080 x 1350 (4:5) and test the crops.

The reasoning:

• It is the portrait size almost every Instagram guide recommends, and the most common third-party recommendation for LinkedIn PDFs.
• It sits inside LinkedIn's 4:5 maximum for multi-image posts.
• It reflows well. Going from 4:5 to 9:16 for TikTok means adding height; going from 9:16 back to 4:5 usually means cutting content.

What it does not solve: padding a 4:5 slide to 9:16 looks lazy on TikTok, so re-lay the text. X crops in the timeline, so check after posting.

Keep a safe area. Hold the headline, numbers and logo away from the edges, especially left and right on the cover (the profile grid) and wherever slides meet, because small text near an edge is the first thing a crop removes.

Repurposing one idea for each platform is its own job; platform-specific campaign variants walks through that.

How many slides should a carousel have?

The question people actually mean: Instagram allows 20, so should you use them?

Usually not. A limit tells you what the platform will accept, not what people will read. The cost of a long carousel is completion. Every extra slide is another point where someone stops swiping, and a deck that loses people at slide 6 has wasted slides 7 to 20. We found no credible 2026 study tying a slide count to better results, so treat "the ideal number is 7" rules as opinion.

A more useful test than a slide count:

• Can each slide be read in a couple of seconds?
• Does each slide add something the previous one did not?
• If you deleted the weakest slide, would anyone notice?

If nobody would notice, delete it and repeat. Long decks work when the content really is a long list someone wants to save, like a 15-step recipe. They fail when a 6-point idea is padded to fill space.

Oakgen Carousels sets its own limit of 2 to 10 slides (default 7), a product choice rather than a platform rule. If you genuinely need a 15 or 20-slide deck, use a general design tool for that one. For what the 2026 benchmarks do and don't show about carousel performance, see do carousels perform better.

Pre-publish checklist

Run it on every carousel before scheduling.

Troubleshooting carousel problems

If your tool generates a whole slide as one AI image, the words are part of the picture and can come out misspelt or soft. Rendering text separately from the artwork avoids that.

Where Oakgen Carousels fits, and where it doesn't

Oakgen Carousels writes and designs carousels from your brand, then exports Instagram 4:5 (1080 x 1350 PNG slides plus the caption in a ZIP), TikTok 9:16 (1080 x 1920), Square 1:1 (1080 x 1080) and a LinkedIn PDF with portrait pages. Text is rendered by Oakgen rather than baked into AI images, so it stays sharp and correctly spelled.

The limits, plainly. Carousel posting from Oakgen goes to Instagram and Facebook Pages only. Carousels for LinkedIn and TikTok are downloads you upload yourself, and X is not supported. Generating carousels needs a paid plan (pricing). If all you need is a correctly sized blank template, any design tool and the table above will do.

To borrow the structure of a proven carousel for your brand, see recreate a carousel that already works. An earlier, chat-based approach is in creating an Instagram carousel with agentic chat.

Sources (checked 22 October 2026)

• Meta, Publish content using the Instagram Platform: 20-item limit, first-image crop, JPEG only, publishing caps.
• Meta, IG User Media reference: 4:5 to 1.91:1 ratio, 320 to 1440 px width, 8 MB, no Reels in carousels.
• Sprout Social, Instagram carousel guide, 13 May 2026: supported ratios, Sprout's 10-image cap.
• LinkedIn Help, answer 97459: document file types, 100 MB, 300 pages, same page size, animations, secure hyperlinks.
• LinkedIn Help, answer a527229: multi-photo posts, 20 photos, 4:5 max render ratio.
• X Developer Platform, media introduction: 4 photos per post, formats and sizes.
• TikTok for Developers, photo post API reference: 35 photos, title and description limits.
• TikTok for Developers, media transfer guide: JPEG or WebP, maximum 1080p, 20 MB per image.
• Metricool, TikTok study 2026 press release, 12 May 2026: video vs image and carousel reach and interactions.
• Metricool, Instagram carousel limit increased to 20, August 2024: in-app rollout report.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best carousel design size in 2026?

1080 x 1350 pixels (4:5 portrait) is the safest single master. It is the common recommendation for Instagram and LinkedIn, and you can re-lay it to 9:16 for TikTok. Keep important text away from the edges so grid and timeline crops do not cut it.

How many slides can an Instagram carousel have?

Up to 20 photos, videos or a mix. Meta's developer documentation states the 20-item limit, and press reported the in-app rollout in August 2024. Some third-party schedulers allow fewer.

What size should a LinkedIn carousel PDF be?

LinkedIn publishes no official slide size. The official rules are a maximum of 100 MB and 300 pages, with every page fitted to the same size. 1080 x 1350 or 1080 x 1080 are common third-party recommendations.

Can you post a carousel on X?

Not as a swipeable deck of more than four. X allows up to 4 photos, 1 animated GIF or 1 video per post. A longer sequence needs a thread or a link to a document hosted elsewhere.

How many photos can a TikTok photo carousel have?

TikTok's Content Posting API accepts up to 35 photos in a photo post, and third-party guides report the same 35 in the app. Through the API, images must be JPEG or WebP, at most 1080p and 20 MB each, so PNG is not accepted there. 1080 x 1920 (9:16) is the common recommendation.

Why does my LinkedIn carousel look blurry?

Usually the PDF was exported at low resolution or compressed to hit a file size. Re-export from the original design at full size without image compression, keep it well under 100 MB, and check it on a phone before posting.

Are links clickable in a carousel?

Text on an image slide is pixels, so it can never be a link. LinkedIn's help page only says PDFs must use secure hyperlinks; it does not promise they are tappable, so put any link you need in the post text and test the document on desktop and mobile.