YouTube Shorts cover – 9:16, 1080 × 1920 px

For Shorts, Google explicitly recommends a 9:16 ratio – a format of its own, different from the classic 16:9 thumbnail.

Format: YouTube Shorts Cover (9:16) · 1080 × 1920 pixels · aspect ratio Shorts

Instagram Story / Reel (9:16) 1080 × 1920 px

Format Quick Switch

Image Source 100% local

Choose New Image

Zoom & Scaling 100%

Safe-Zone Overlay Guides for interface elements

Background For PNG crops

Remove background Simple · no model

For plain backgrounds (product photos, scans). No model, ready instantly.

Tolerance 45

Touch-up No mode active

Pick a mode, then click in the image or drag with the mouse held down. The connected area there is corrected.

Format

Quality

Transparent cut-out: set Background → Transparent. JPEG cannot store transparency.

For web developers

Instagram Story (9:16) Live Render & Retina Export

Switch Mockup Template Live Sync

Author / Name

Handle / Role

Avatar Image Round PNG/JPG

Select

Post Image No image selected

Load Image

Story export mode 9:16

Chat design & cut-out Social Proof

Color scheme:

Background Automatic

Applies to chat and story templates. Without a custom choice, the template default is used.

Post / message text

Show text 0 characters

Images → PDF No images Source images total: –

Page settings

Page format Image in the page frame Margin Background Image size in the PDF Add page numbers

PDF title (optional) Author (optional)

The images are processed entirely in this browser. Nothing is uploaded – you can verify this yourself in the network panel of your browser developer tools.

Images and order

Drag images here

or · Paste with Ctrl+V

Multiple selection possible · JPG, PNG, WebP

No images yet. The order in this list becomes the page order of the PDF.

YouTube Shorts cover size: 1080 × 1920 px (9:16)

A YouTube Shorts cover is 1080 × 1920 pixels, the standard 9:16 vertical format. What separates Shorts from Stories is the interface: YouTube draws the title, the channel name and the action buttons over the lower part of the frame and along the right edge, and they stay there for the whole clip. A cover designed like a horizontal thumbnail rarely survives that.

That leaves a safe area noticeably smaller than the full frame. Headlines, prices and faces belong in the upper two thirds and away from the right-hand column. The tool marks the covered region while you work, so you place the important part before exporting rather than after seeing the result on a phone. Keep the export at exactly 1080 × 1920 pixels – a Short is delivered at that size, and a larger upload only gets rescaled. Shorts also run in a vertical feed, so tiny lettering becomes unreadable long before it becomes unsharp.

The same image usually also works for the Instagram Story and the TikTok video cover, which share the 9:16 ratio but have different interface overlays – worth exporting separately.

Good to know

This format was not available before. A 16:9 image used for Shorts ends up with large black bars or a heavy crop in the vertical feed.

Related tools

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Three questions about the 1080 × 1920 Shorts cover – and which parts of it YouTube covers with its own interface.

Which parts of the cover does YouTube draw over?

YouTube places the title, the channel name and the action buttons over the lower part of the frame and along the right edge, and they stay there for the whole clip. The guides in this tool reserve roughly the bottom fifth and a strip on the right for them, so headlines and faces belong in the upper two thirds and away from that column.

Is a Shorts cover the same as an Instagram Story?

Both use 1080 × 1920 pixels at 9:16, so the same source photo fits either one. What differs is the overlay: a Story hides the top and the bottom with the profile bar and the reply field, while a Short is covered along the lower edge and the right side. One file, two exports – and the important content has to survive both sets of bands.

Why does my Shorts cover look blurry in the feed?

Shorts run in a vertical feed where the image is shown at a fraction of its size, so fine detail is lost before anyone sees it at full resolution – and a cover that was upscaled from a smaller file loses it twice. Export at exactly 1080 × 1920 pixels from a source that is at least that large, and keep lettering generous.