How to resize an image for a Facebook cover

A Facebook cover photo is a very wide banner, and most photos are not that shape — so an unprepared upload gets cropped in a place you did not choose, and faces, text, or a logo near the edge can disappear. The recommended upload size is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall. The steps below take any photo to that exact size in your browser on ImageTool.us, with no upload and no signup.

1. The size Facebook wants

• Recommended upload size: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall.
• Shape: about 2.7 to 1 — much wider than a normal photo, and wider than a 16:9 video frame.
• Display size on a computer: 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall.
• Display size on a phone: 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall — a taller shape, so the left and right sides of the wide banner are cropped away on mobile.
• Minimum size Facebook accepts: 400 pixels wide by 150 pixels tall, but a cover uploaded that small will look soft on a large screen, so use the full 851 x 315 size.
• Format: JPG or PNG. JPG is usually the smaller file for a photo-based cover.

2. Step 1: keep the important part in the center

Because the phone view crops the sides and the computer view crops a little top and bottom, the only area that is always visible is the center of the banner. Put the main subject, any text, and any logo in the middle of the image, and keep the edges as plain background. On a personal profile, remember that the round profile photo also sits over the lower-left corner of the cover on most screens, so do not put text there either. Use the Image Cropper to cut your photo to a wide shape, and check that the subject is still fully inside the frame after the crop. The cropper crops from the center, so a subject sitting far to one side may be trimmed — start from a photo where the subject is already near the middle, or accept that the edges will be lost.

3. Step 2: resize to exactly 851 x 315

Once the shape is wide enough, set the exact pixel size with the Image Resizer: enter 851 as the width and 315 as the height. If your starting photo is smaller than 851 x 315, resizing up will not add detail, so start from the largest original you have. Do not confuse the cover with the shared-link image: the Social Media Resizer has a Facebook preset of 1200 x 630, but that is the image shown when a link is shared, not the cover banner — a 1200 x 630 image uploaded as a cover will still be cropped to the wide banner shape.

4. Step 3: add text or a logo in the safe center area

If the cover needs words — a business name, a slogan, a phone number — keep them short, large, and centered, with strong contrast against the photo behind them. Small text at the edges will be cropped on phones and unreadable at banner size. The Image Editor adds a text overlay to your resized cover, along with brightness and contrast adjustments if the photo behind the text needs darkening for readability. Test the result by imagining the outer thirds cut off on each side: if the message still reads, the cover works on both computer and phone.

5. Step 4: compress before uploading

A cover photo does not need a huge file to look sharp at 851 x 315, and a smaller file uploads faster, especially on a slow connection. Compress the finished cover with the Image Compressor, or aim at a safe size with Compress Image to 200KB — plenty of quality for a banner that size. If the cover is a PNG, converting it with the PNG to JPG Converter usually cuts the size sharply, as long as the cover has no transparency to preserve. For how far quality can drop before the loss shows, see the guide to compressing images without losing quality.

Common mistakes

• Uploading a square or tall photo and letting Facebook crop it — the subject or text ends up cut off.
• Putting text or a logo at the left or right edge, where the phone view crops it away.
• Putting important text in the lower-left corner, where the profile photo covers it.
• Using the 1200 x 630 shared-link size as the cover and wondering why it still gets cropped.
• Uploading a tiny image and getting a blurry banner on a large screen.
• Re-saving the same JPG many times — each save loses a little quality, so work from the original and export the cover once.

Quick checklist

• Resized to exactly 851 x 315 pixels.
• Main subject, text, and logo all in the center, clear of the edges and the lower-left corner.
• Message still readable if the outer thirds are cut off on each side (the phone view).
• File saved as JPG or PNG, compressed for a fast upload.
• Original photo kept untouched, so the cover can be remade later.

Your images never leave your device on ImageTool.us: every tool runs entirely in your browser. No upload, no signup, no watermark. For other platforms, see the guide to the best image sizes for social media and the guide to making a YouTube thumbnail size image.