Twitter header size

The Twitter header size is 1500 × 500 pixels, and X still publishes that figure under its own name. What almost nobody repeats is the sentence a few lines further down the same help center: 60 pixels on the top and bottom could be cropped.

That single line is unusual, though not unique: Meta states percentages for its full-screen placements, and YouTube states a rectangle for a channel banner — at a canvas size it tells you not to use, which is its own problem, covered in YouTube banner size. What makes X’s figure different is that it names what you lose rather than what you keep. It is worth building around.

Both figures below come from X’s help center, read on September 7, 2026.

What X publishes

1500 × 500 is exactly 3:1. That is a wide, shallow strip, and it is the most demanding of the common banner shapes — a photograph in the usual 3:2 has to give up half its height to fit.

The 60 pixel band, and what it is not

X’s wording is careful, and the care is the point. The full sentence is that if you use the recommended dimensions and still see parts cropped, “it is most likely because of the way these images are displayed on different monitor sizes and in different browsers (60 pixels on the top and bottom could be cropped)”.

So it is:

• A published figure, tied explicitly to the 1500 × 500 recommendation.
• Hedged, twice: “most likely”, and “could be”. It is a description of what happens across monitors and browsers, not a boundary X commits to holding.
• Not a safe area. X does not draw a rectangle, does not name a margin for the left and right edges, and says nothing about where the profile picture sits.

Treated as arithmetic on the recommended size, 60 pixels off each end leaves a band of 1500 × 380 in the middle — the derivation is ours, the 60 is X’s. Anything that must survive on every monitor belongs inside that band. Anything you can afford to lose belongs in the two 60-pixel strips.

No animated GIFs, even though GIF is accepted

This is the requirement that catches people out, because the format list and the animation rule sit in different sentences. GIF is a supported file type for a header. An animated GIF is not supported for a profile or header image. Upload one and you get its first frame, which is often not the frame you would have chosen.

If motion is the point, it belongs in a post rather than in the header.

The 2 MB question

X states “Maximum file size for profile photos is 2MB” on the same page that gives both the profile and the header dimensions, and it does not separately state a maximum for headers. Read strictly, the sentence is about profile photos. Read loosely, it is the file size paragraph of a page about both.

The honest answer is that X has not published a header ceiling, and that 2 MB is a reasonable target anyway: a 1500 × 500 photograph saved as a quality JPEG lands far below it, and anything that does not is usually a PNG of a photograph.

Where the profile picture sits

It overlaps the lower left of the header. Every layout of X has done this for years, and your own profile page will show you exactly where.

It is still not published. X’s help center describes how to change both images and gives their dimensions; it does not state the overlap position or size anywhere. Use your own profile as the reference, and do not trust a guide that hands you exact coordinates for it — those were measured on one screen on one day, and a layout that moves takes the measurement with it.

Getting an image to 1500 × 500

The shape is the hard part. 3:1 is much wider than anything a camera produces, so expect to discard most of the height and to choose carefully which part survives. The image resizer crops and scales in the same pass, so the picture is read once rather than resampled twice by two separate tools.

Check what you actually have. Image dimensions reports the stored and the displayed size separately, which differ for anything photographed on a rotated phone. The displayed pair is what X measures.

Bring the weight down without touching the shape. Compress image searches for a quality that lands under a byte figure you name while the pixel dimensions stay exactly as they are.

Start from nothing. Draw at 3:1 rather than forcing a photograph into it afterwards. The Twitter header maker exports 1500 × 500, or that doubled, over a picture or a flat background with your own wording, and it can outline the two 60-pixel strips while you compose so you can see what the sentence above actually costs you.

The profile photo is a different job. It is 400 × 400, so square, and square image does that without asking you to work out the offsets.

Checklist

1. Build at 1500 × 500. It is X’s published recommendation and it is exactly 3:1.
2. Keep anything that must be read inside the middle band, clear of 60 pixels at the top and 60 at the bottom.
3. Leave the lower left uncommitted — that is where the profile picture lands.
4. JPEG or PNG. GIF is accepted but animation is not, so an animated file loses everything after its first frame.
5. Aim under 2 MB. X publishes that ceiling for profile photos and none for headers, which makes it a sensible target rather than a stated rule.

Sources

• X Help Center, How to customize your profile — header photo “recommended dimensions are 1500x500 pixels”, profile photo “400x400 pixels”, and “Photos can be in any of the following formats: JPG, GIF, or PNG. (X does not support animated GIFs for profile or header/banner images.)” Read September 7, 2026.
• X Help Center, Help with uploading a profile photo — “X supports JPEG, GIF, and PNG file formats”, “Maximum file size for profile photos is 2MB”, the recommended dimensions for both images, and “60 pixels on the top and bottom could be cropped”. Read September 7, 2026.