TikTok video size (2026).1080 × 1920 at 9:16, and where the app covers it.

TikTok aspect ratio: 9:16And what happens to everything else.

TikTok is built for 9:16, a vertical frame 1080 pixels wide and 1920 tall. It is the ratio TikTok recommends for covers and ads, the one its ad template is drawn on, and the only one that fills the screen. Other ratios are accepted, and shown smaller:

• 1:1, 1080 × 1080Plays in the middle with black bars above and below, at about half the height of the screen.
• 4:5, 1080 × 1350Also barred, a little taller than a square. Fine for a feed post reused as is, but not the best use of the screen.
• 16:9, 1920 × 1080A landscape video plays as a thin strip across the middle, about a third of the screen. Crop it to 9:16 or reframe it before you post.

A 1920 × 1080 video is not the same as 1080 × 1920: the first is landscape, the second is the TikTok frame. Most editors call both "1080p", so check the width is the smaller number before you export.

TikTok safe zones, in pixelsFrom TikTok's own template.

TikTok draws its interface over your video: the tabs and search at the top, the like, comment, save and share buttons on the right, and your name, the caption, the sound and the menu at the bottom. TikTok publishes the areas to keep clear as a template for advertisers, drawn on a 720 × 1280 frame. Scaled to 1080 × 1920, it gives:

That leaves a safe area of 840 × 600 pixels in the upper middle of the frame, from 240 to 840 pixels down, and a narrower 660 × 420 below it, next to the buttons. Put titles, captions burned into the video and faces there. The template is made for ads, but organic videos get the same buttons and the same caption, often a longer one.

Where to put text and faces

• Titles and hooks: the upper middleBetween 240 and 840 pixels down, away from the edges. It is the first thing people read, and nothing covers it.
• Burned-in captions: above 1260 pixelsSubtitles placed low, where many editors put them by default, end up under TikTok's own caption. Raise them to the lower edge of the safe area.
• Faces: centred, a little above the middleThe button column starts at 840 pixels on the right, so a face on the right half, low in the frame, gets covered by the like and comment buttons.
• Logos: not in the cornersEvery corner is covered: the tabs at the top, the menu at the bottom. A small logo in the upper safe area stays visible.

How long can a TikTok be?

Up to 10 minutes when you record in the app, and up to 60 minutes when you upload a video. From a web browser, the whole file is uploaded with no trimming.

Scheduling tools go through TikTok's Content Posting API, which has its own rules: videos of up to 10 minutes, but each creator has a personal cap of 3, 5 or 10 minutes that the tool has to read before posting. The API takes MP4, WebM or MOV, from 23 to 60 frames per second, between 360 and 4096 pixels on each side, and up to 4 GB.

Why TikTok lowers your video quality

TikTok re-encodes every upload, and most of the loss comes from what goes in. A 4K video is scaled down, a 720p one looks soft on a large phone, and a landscape clip loses two thirds of the screen. What keeps the quality:

• Export at 1080 × 1920The resolution the frame is designed for. More is scaled down by TikTok's encoder, not by yours.
• Use MP4 with H.264The format TikTok's own documentation recommends, at 30 frames per second or more.

Photo mode and carousel size

A photo post holds up to 35 photos, swiped one after the other. TikTok doesn't state a ratio for them; a 9:16 photo at 1080 × 1920 fills the screen like a video, and any other ratio is shown with bars. Through the API, photos must be JPEG or WebP, at most 1080p and 20 MB each: a PNG is refused.

Cover and profile photo size

TikTok recommends 1080 × 1920 (9:16) for video covers, and advises keeping the important part away from the edges. The profile photo is shown as a circle; TikTok only states a minimum of 20 × 20 pixels, so upload a square of at least 200 × 200 with the face in the middle.

How to turn a video into TikTok's 9:16 format

Set your editor's project to 1080 × 1920 before you cut, not after: the preview then shows the real frame and you place everything once. For footage shot landscape, you have three options:

• Crop to 9:16Keep the middle third of the frame and follow the subject when it moves. Works for one person talking or one product in shot.
• Split the screenStack two parts of the landscape shot, or the shot and a close-up, one above the other.
• Place it on a 9:16 canvasThe whole landscape frame in the middle, with a title above and captions below, inside the safe area. The video shows small, but nothing is lost.

For a still image, the resizer at the top of this page does the crop: pick Video, drag the picture into place against the safe zone, and download it at 1080 × 1920.

TikTok ad sizes

In-Feed ads accept 9:16 from 540 × 960, 16:9 from 960 × 540 and 1:1 from 640 × 640, in MP4, MOV, MPEG, 3GP or AVI, up to 10 minutes and 500 MB. The safe-zone template above is the one TikTok gives advertisers: plan for the same areas, and a longer caption at the bottom.