Grid Maker

Sized at 1080 px

Grid maker for Instagram

One photo, cut into a profile grid or a carousel, at the sizes the app actually serves. The order to post them in comes with it.

Drop an image here

JPG, PNG, WEBP or GIF. Read by your browser, never uploaded.

Choose an image

or paste with Ctrl / ⌘ + V

0 × 0 px

Quick templates

Tile shape

Output format

Grid or carousel? Decide this first

They look similar in a splitter and behave completely differently once posted. Picking the wrong one is the expensive mistake on this page, because a profile grid cannot be undone without deleting posts.

Profile grid Carousel
Posts used One per tile One, total
Order Backwards Normal, slide 1 first
Who sees the whole picture Profile visitors Everyone scrolling past
Can it break later Yes No
Best shape 1:1 4:5

The sizes that matter

Feed images are served 1080 px wide. Upload something larger and it gets resized down, smaller and it gets stretched up — either way you land at 1080. Square is 1080 × 1080, portrait is 1080 × 1350, and portrait fills far more of the screen. Profile thumbnails are always square though, cropped from the middle, whatever shape you posted.

Why the order runs backwards

A profile lists your posts newest first, filling from the top left. So the tile that ends up bottom right has to be published first, and the top left tile last. Every tile here is numbered that way and the number is in the file name.

Not sure it will look right? The mock-up under the tiles shows the grid the way a profile shows it, gaps and all. Cheaper to move the crop now than to delete nine posts later.

Where this usually goes wrong

  • Posted in reading order. The picture comes out flipped. The only fix is deleting and starting again.
  • Something published in the middle. Everything after it shifts by one and the grid scrambles.
  • A source thats too small. Nine tiles out of a 1080 px photo is 360 px each, all of them stretched back up.
  • Mixed shapes in a carousel. Every slide gets cropped to match the first one.
  • Nine posts with no captions. Anyone meeting them in the feed sees fragments with nothing to say.

How to make a grid

  1. Choose Grid for a profile mural, or Carousel for a swipeable post.
  2. Add a photo — larger than 3240 px if you are doing a 3×3.
  3. Set the shape, then drag to frame it.
  4. Check the profile mock-up, download the ZIP, and post tile 1 first.

Questions

What size should a grid image be?

1080 px per tile. For a 3x3 that means a source of at least 3240 by 3240. Smaller still cuts, it just gets scaled up on upload and looks softer.

Which tile goes up first?

The bottom right one, numbered 1 here. Your newest post lands top left, so the grid fills backwards.

Can I make a grid from a portrait photo?

Yes. Use 3x4 or 3x5 rather than 3x3 and the whole frame fits without much cropping. The templates cover three columns by up to six rows.

Does the app compress my tiles?

Yes, every upload is re-encoded. You can't avoid it, but you can give it good material — export at full 1080, JPG at 90% or higher, and don't run the file through three other apps first.

Is 4:5 or 1:1 better?

4:5 takes up more screen in the feed, which usually means more attention. 1:1 lines up exactly with the profile grid. If the grid is the point use 1:1, otherwise 4:5 and keep the important bits away from the top and bottom.