Instagram safe zone checker

It's the part of the frame that gets covered or cropped once a photo is actually posted. Reels and Stories lay their own interface, captions, usernames, a reply field, engagement icons, on top of a 9:16 video frame. Feed Posts don't get a UI overlay, but a 4:5 post gets center-cropped to a square in the profile grid, so its top and bottom edges are hidden there. Anything important, a face, a subtitle, a product, placed in those zones gets partly or fully hidden depending on where someone sees it. Reels, Stories, and Post each reserve different space, use the tabs above to check the one you're actually posting to.

It's a close approximation based on Instagram's published creator and ads specs, not a pixel-perfect measurement pulled from the live app. Instagram tweaks its UI over time, so treat this as a composition check, not a guarantee.

No. The image is drawn straight into an on-page canvas and never leaves your browser.

Yes, TikTok reserves similar but not identical space to Reels and Stories. Use the dedicated TikTok safe zone checker to overlay TikTok's own caption, username, and icon bands on your photo.

At the standard 1080x1920 export, the bottom caption/username/audio band runs roughly 24% up from the base (about 461px), and the right-hand icon column eats roughly the last 12% of width (about 130px). Switch to the Reels tab above to see both bands drawn to scale on your own photo, plus the exact pixel and percent figures.

It's the area of a Reel that Instagram's own interface sits on top of once it's posted: a thin top bar for the Reels label and audio, a bottom band for the caption, username, and audio title, and a right-hand column of like, comment, share, and profile icons. Switch to the Reels tab above to see all three drawn to scale on your own photo, along with the exact pixel and percent depth of each.

1080x1920 pixels at a 9:16 aspect ratio is Instagram's standard export size for Reels. This tool's Reels tab matches that resolution, so the safe-zone measurements line up directly with whatever you export from your camera or editor.

Yes. A Reels cover image, the still frame or photo shown before someone taps play, sits inside the same 9:16 frame and gets the same caption, username, audio, and icon overlay as the video itself, so the same safe zone applies.

At the standard 1080x1920 export, Stories reserves roughly the top 12% (about 230px) for the profile picture, username, timestamp, and close button, and roughly the bottom 12% (about 230px) for the reply field and share row. Switch to the Stories tab above to see both bands drawn to scale on your own photo.

It's the top and bottom bands Instagram reserves on a Story for its own UI, roughly the top 12% for the profile picture, username, timestamp, and close button, and roughly the bottom 12% for the reply field and share row, leaving the middle of the frame the only part guaranteed to stay clear. Unlike Reels, there's no side icon column to account for. Switch to the Stories tab above to check it against your own photo.

1080x1920 pixels at 9:16, the same export size as Reels. The UI bands differ, though, Stories has no side icon column, so don't reuse a Reels-checked composition for Stories without checking the top and bottom bands too.

Partly. A Highlight cover is a small circular crop taken from the center of your Story image, so it automatically discards the top and bottom UI bands. Keeping your subject centered per the Stories safe zone above generally keeps it inside the Highlight cover too, but text near the edges of that center square can still get trimmed by the circular mask, so keep any text closer to the middle if it also needs to survive as a Highlight cover.

A 4:5 feed Post (1080x1350) gets center-cropped to a 1:1 square in the profile grid, cutting roughly 10% (about 135px) off the top and another 10% off the bottom. There's no app UI drawn on top of a Post the way there is on Reels or Stories, so this is really a "what survives the grid crop" check, not a UI-overlap one.

1080x1350 pixels at a 4:5 aspect ratio is Instagram's recommended portrait size for feed Posts, it shows more of the photo in-feed than a square 1:1 crop does. The profile grid still displays a square thumbnail though, which is what the Post safe zone above accounts for.

Yes, but only for the first slide. Every slide in a carousel is exported at the same 4:5 frame, but Instagram only ever generates the profile grid thumbnail from the first slide's center-cropped square. Slides beyond the first are only ever seen at full 4:5 size when someone swipes through, so their top and bottom edges are never trimmed by the grid crop.

For Reels, the center third of the frame, roughly the middle of the width and the area between the top bar and bottom caption band, stays clear across devices. For Stories, keep it centered between the top profile bar and bottom reply row. For a Post, keep the subject within the middle square so it still reads once the profile grid crops the top and bottom.

Yes, see the dedicated Instagram safe zone template page for the exact pixel and percent breakdown across Reels, Stories, and Post, plus how to turn it into a guide layer while you edit.