How to make an Instagram carousel: sizes, slide structure and ideas

What is an Instagram carousel and how many slides can it have?

Instagram describes it as sharing a post with up to 20 photos and videos as a single post, also known as a carousel, to your Instagram feed. In the feed people see the first photo or video with a row of dots below it and swipe to see the rest. On your profile the grid shows the first slide.

Photos and videos can be mixed in one carousel. Videos inside a carousel are not reels: Instagram says they do not show up in the Reels tab and have no reels features. Likes and comments belong to the whole post, not to a single slide. Posts with several videos may take longer to upload, so use a reliable network.

How do you make and post a carousel on Instagram?

These are the computer steps on Instagram's Help page, read October 21, 2026 in a browser. The iPhone and Android versions of the page could not be read, so we give no mobile steps; the app menus differ. We did not run these steps ourselves.

1. Click Create on the left, then click Post, then click Select from computer.
2. Select up to 20 photos and videos from your computer. To adjust how each one is cropped, click and hold it, then drag it in the frame. The orientation you choose (square, portrait or landscape) affects all of them. Click Next.
3. To change the order, click and hold one and drag it to another spot. To remove one, click the icon next to it. Click Next.
4. Click a filter to apply it to every photo and video, or click one to edit it on its own.
5. Add one location and one caption for the entire post. To tag someone, click the individual photo.
6. Click Share.

What size should Instagram carousel slides be?

Instagram does not publish a recommended pixel size for carousels. The Help Center page on photo resolution states a range: photos up to 1080 px wide are uploaded at the best quality possible; a photo 320 to 1080 px wide keeps its original resolution when its aspect ratio is between 1.91:1 and 3:4, which Instagram writes as 1080 px wide and 566 to 1440 px tall. A wider photo is sized down to 1080 px. A ratio outside the range is cropped to fit one that is supported. That page is written for photos and does not repeat the range for carousel slides, so read it as the closest published guide.

Our recommendation is 1080 x 1350 px (4:5) for every slide. It is the tallest common shape that stays inside Instagram's stated range with room to spare (1350 is under 1440), so slides fill the most feed space without being cropped. Square 1080 x 1080 is the other safe choice. We also keep the same size on every slide because Instagram applies one orientation to the whole post.

Instagram Help Center, read October 21, 2026.

Check any other size with the free aspect ratio calculator, and resize a file to the feed shape with the Instagram feed image resizer. The Help Center page does not say whether a given carousel orientation maps to one exact size; it only names square, portrait and landscape.

Free tools:Aspect ratio calculatorInstagram feed image resizer

Should I use 4:5 (1080 x 1350) or 3:4 (1080 x 1440)?

Both fit the range Instagram states for photos (1.91:1 to 3:4 at up to 1080 px wide). The difference is height. 1440 divided by 1350 is 1.0667, so 3:4 is 6.7% taller than 4:5 (1,555,200 pixels against 1,458,000). Which one is safe depends on your posting route, and Instagram Help does not say which route supports 3:4 for carousels, so choose by scenario.

Our calculation from the range Instagram states; recommendations are ours.

How does Instagram crop the profile grid thumbnail?

The two Instagram Help pages we read (read October 21, 2026) do not say how a post thumbnail is cropped in the profile grid, so we state no grid ratio. Our recommendation, not a rule: keep the main subject and the headline of slide 1 near the center of the frame, away from the edges, so a different thumbnail crop is less likely to cut them off.

What happens if my slides are different sizes?

Verified rule: the Instagram Help page says the orientation you choose (square, portrait or landscape) affects all of the photos or videos in your post, and you cannot select a different orientation for each one. Slides that do not match the chosen frame are cropped to fit, and you can move each one in the frame before you continue.

Reported, not in Instagram Help: Kapwing (article dated December 31, 2025) and Lindsey Gamble's blog post of March 6, 2025 describe a Mixed option in the in-app carousel crop control. Kapwing places the resize icon at the bottom-left of the preview and lists Mixed, Portrait and Square; both say Mixed lets each photo keep its own proportions. We read both on October 21, 2026, and could not confirm it in Instagram Help or in the app. Availability may vary by account and app version, and posting through other tools or APIs can behave differently. Test it in your own app, and keep one size for every slide in a designed carousel.

The cost is easy to compute. Put a 1080 x 1080 square into a 1080 x 1350 portrait frame and fill the frame: the picture is scaled to 1350 x 1350 and the sides are cut to 1080, so 270 of 1350 columns (20%) disappear. Keep the whole square and you leave 270 px of empty frame instead. Designing every slide at the same shape avoids both, whatever your app offers.

How should you structure a carousel?

This section is our recommendation from common slide design practice, not an Instagram rule and not a performance claim. The picture below shows one 7-slide carousel at 4:5 with every slide labeled.

• Slide 1, the hook: one short promise of what the carousel gives. Large text, few words.
• Slides 2 to 6, one idea per slide. If a slide needs two sentences to explain, split it.
• Last slide, one call to action: a single action such as save, share or follow. Do not stack three asks.
• Same size, same fonts and same margins on every slide so the swipe feels like one piece.
• Keep a margin on all four sides so no text touches the edge of the frame.

What are 12 carousel formats you can use?

One line each. These are formats to borrow, not predictions of results.

• Step-by-step tutorial: one step per slide, the finished result on the last slide.
• Before and after: slide 1 the starting point, slide 2 the change, slide 3 what you did.
• Myth versus fact: one myth on the slide, the correction on the next.
• Checklist: one item per slide, in the order you do them.
• Tool or tip list: one tool or tip per slide with a single sentence on when to use it.
• Case story: the problem, what you tried, what changed, using only your own real numbers.
• Behind the scenes: a project in time order, one stage per slide.
• A versus B: two options compared on one criterion per slide.
• FAQ: one question per slide, answer in two lines.
• Repurposed content: turn a blog post, transcript or PDF into slides (see our guides on those below).
• Seamless panorama: one wide image cut into slides so it continues across the swipe.
• Photo dump with captions: a trip or event in photos, with the story in the one caption for the whole post.

How do you make a seamless carousel that connects across slides?

Design one wide canvas as wide as all slides together, then cut it into equal slices. For 4:5 slides the canvas height is 1350 px and the width is 1080 times the slide count. The numbers below are our own arithmetic from the 1080 x 1350 size.

Our calculation.

Export each slice as its own file at 1080 x 1350, upload them in order and keep every slice the same size so no slide is re-cropped.

Is there an editable 7-slide template I can download?

Yes. This zip holds the 7-slide structure above as 7 PNG files at 1080 x 1350 px (4:5) with plain placeholder text and no logos, made by us. Open each in any image editor, replace the text and export at the same size.

Free tool:Download the 7-slide template (zip, 7 PNGs, 1080 x 1350 px)

How do I make a carousel with Koldflux tools?

Koldflux does not have a carousel designer. These free tools cover the preparation steps around your design app.

1. Choose colors with the palettes tool and a typeface with the fonts tool, so every slide shares them.
2. Work out the frame with the aspect ratio calculator: 4:5 at 1080 px wide is 1080 x 1350.
3. Design the slides in your own editor, or start from the template above.
4. Resize each finished image to the feed shape with the Instagram feed image resizer.
5. If a file is too big to upload, shrink it with the image compressor.

Free tools:Color palettesFontsAspect ratio calculatorInstagram feed image resizerImage compressor

Can you edit a carousel after posting it?

Partly. Instagram says that after you share a carousel you can reorder the content, remove photos or videos, edit your caption or captions, edit the location and edit the accounts you tagged. Tap the three-dot menu on the carousel, tap Edit, press and hold to reorder, then tap Done. You cannot add new photos or videos after sharing; the only other option is to delete the post.

Does this cover carousel ads, music or the best number of slides?

No. The Instagram Help Center pages we read cover feed carousels only. Carousel ads are a separate Meta ad format and are not described there. The pages also say nothing about adding music to a carousel and name no ideal slide count other than the limit of 20, so we state none.

Limits and how we checked

• Only read: two Instagram Help Center pages, read on October 21, 2026. Instagram does not date them, so that date is when we read them. The computer steps come from those pages and were not run by us. We give no mobile steps.
• The Mixed option is described by two third party articles that we read the same day. We did not test it, and it is not in Instagram Help.
• Ours, not Instagram's: the size recommendation, the 4:5 and 3:4 comparison, the template, the slide structure, the idea bank and the panorama and crop figures are labeled as our suggestions.
• The page does not cover carousel ads, music or the best number of slides.