Instagram Shop image requirements

In Meta Commerce Manager, not in Instagram.

Open the catalogue, find the item, and replace the image there. If the catalogue is fed by a connected platform such as Shopify or a data feed, replace the image at the source instead, because the next feed sync will overwrite anything you change by hand in Commerce Manager.

While you are there, check the item's status. Meta reports rejected and pending items individually, and the reason given is usually specific enough to act on: image too small, unsupported format, or a policy issue with what the image shows.

Pad, do not crop. Put the photo on a square canvas and let the extra space fall to the sides or the top and bottom, rather than trimming the product to fit.

• Take the long edge as your target: a 1200 x 1800 photo becomes an 1800 x 1800 canvas.
• Fill the padding with a colour that suits the shop, usually white or a soft neutral.
• Keep the product centred and give it a consistent margin, so the catalogue reads as one set rather than as a folder of photos.

Where the product has been shot on a background that does not extend, replacing the background is more convincing than padding one side with a mismatched colour. Photomop is a photo studio that runs on your own device and its change background tool handles this, putting the product on a uniform field that fills the square cleanly.

1024 x 1024 pixels meets Meta's recommendation, and going somewhat above it is sensible.

Instagram is a phone surface, and phone screens run at two or three times the nominal resolution. An image at exactly 1024 looks fine and an image at 1440 or 2048 looks better on a modern handset, at a file size that is still nowhere near the 8 MB ceiling.

What matters more is the floor. Anything under 500 x 500 is rejected outright, so supplier images and old catalogue photos are worth auditing before you connect a feed. Upscaling a genuinely small image reconstructs some detail, but reshooting is better where the product still exists.

Convert them to JPEG before they reach the catalogue.

The two common sources are recent phones, which save as HEIC by default, and images saved from web pages, which increasingly arrive as WebP. Both display normally on your computer, which is why the rejection is confusing.

Converting yourself is better than switching your phone to JPEG capture, because it lets you set the dimensions and the quality in the same pass. Check the orientation afterwards: HEIC files carry rotation as metadata, and a conversion that drops the tag produces a product lying on its side.

Decide one treatment and apply it to everything.

Instagram Shop shows your products as a grid of squares, so the eye reads the set before it reads any single item. A catalogue where half the products sit on white and half sit on a wooden table looks disorganised even when every individual photo is good.

• One background treatment across the catalogue.
• One margin, so products appear at a consistent size.
• One aspect ratio, square, with no exceptions.
• Lifestyle shots as secondary images, not as the primary tile.