Free tool, runs in your browser

Keep the title out of the Reel UI.

A Reel cover is 1080 by 1920, but the viewer only sees the middle: Instagram's username, caption and buttons cover the top and bottom, the profile grid shows a 3:4 slice, and the feed shows 4:5. Load your cover, toggle the overlays, and slide the image until the title sits in the area every surface keeps.

Free, no account, nothing uploaded. Updated .

Any photo or graphic. It is drawn in your browser and never uploaded.

Overlays
Source already fits 9:16

The download has no overlays; they are guides only.

Safe zone in numbers

  • Top 250 px and bottom 420 px are covered by Reel controls when it plays.
  • Right 130 px from about 900 px down hides behind the like and share stack.
  • The profile grid shows only the middle 1080 x 1440. Titles outside it vanish from your profile.
  • Shared to the feed, a Reel shows the middle 1080 x 1350.

Reel cover size and what the viewer actually sees

A Reel cover is 1080 by 1920 pixels, the same 9:16 as the video. When the Reel plays, Instagram draws its own interface over it: the status bar and Reels header across the top 250 pixels, the username, caption, audio strip and navigation bar across the bottom 420, and the like, comment, share and more buttons down the right edge from roughly 900 pixels down.

The cover also appears cropped in two other places. The profile grid shows a 3:4 center slice, 1080 by 1440, and a Reel shared to the feed shows a 4:5 center slice, 1080 by 1350. A title placed near the top or bottom of the cover disappears on both.

Designing a cover that reads everywhere

Put the title inside the middle 1080 by 1350 and keep it left of the right-hand button stack. Use one to four words at a size that reads as a grid thumbnail, which is roughly 120 pixels wide on a phone. Contrast matters more than style: check the text color against the darkest and lightest part of the frame.

The same rules hold for TikTok and YouTube Shorts with slightly larger bottom margins. Use the reposition slider when the source photo is not 9:16 to choose which part of the image ends up in the safe center.

How to use it

  1. 01

    Choose the cover image or frame. Vertical 9:16 images fit exactly; anything else is center-cropped.

  2. 02

    Toggle the three overlays. Shaded areas are hidden by the Reel UI; the amber box is what the grid shows; the white box is the feed crop.

  3. 03

    Slide to reposition if needed, then download the clean 1080 by 1920 cover.

Questions

  • 1080 by 1920 pixels, the same 9:16 as the video. Instagram then shows a 3:4 center crop of it in the profile grid and a 4:5 center crop in the feed, so the title must sit within roughly the middle 1080 by 1350.

  • Keep text out of the top 250 pixels and the bottom 420 pixels, and away from the right 130 pixels below the middle where the like, comment and share buttons sit. The overlays in this tool mark those regions.

  • Almost. TikTok's controls are a little larger at the bottom and along the right edge, and Shorts adds a title bar. Content that passes the Reel UI overlay here is safe on all three with a small extra margin at the bottom.

  • No. The preview and the download are drawn on a canvas in your browser.

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