Optimize your X (Twitter) header photo with these dimensions: 1500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall. You’ll also need to account for your profile picture and the invisible area around your display image.
If you’ve ever struggled withTwitter 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 thisproblem 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:
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:
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.
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.
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
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
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 directlyinto 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.
