Instagram Highlight Covers: Sizes, Free Covers, How to Add

Instagram highlight covers are 1080 x 1920 pixels, and Instagram crops a circle from the centre. Anything outside the middle square is cut, which is why so many covers end up with half an icon showing. You can change a cover without posting anything to your story. Make a matching set free with the highlight cover maker, or follow the steps below to use your own image.

Instagram highlight cover size

• Upload size: 1080 x 1920 pixels, 9:16, the same as a story.
• Visible area: a circle cropped from the centre. Design inside the middle 1080 x 1080 square.
• Displayed size: Instagram renders the cover at roughly 161 x 161 pixels on the profile, so thin lines and small text disappear.
• Format: PNG for flat icons and solid colour, JPEG for photographs.
• Label length: the text under the cover truncates at around 14 characters, not the cover image itself.

How to change a highlight cover

1. Save the cover image to your camera roll.
2. Go to your profile and tap and hold the highlight you want to change.
3. Tap Edit Highlight.
4. Tap Edit Cover, then tap the photo icon on the left.
5. Pick the image and pinch to centre the icon inside the circle.
6. Tap Done, then Done again.

This never publishes anything. The image is used only as the cover, so your followers do not see a story appear. That is the part most guides get wrong, and it is why people end up posting a blank coloured story and immediately deleting it.

How to add a cover to a new highlight

1. Tap the plus icon in the Highlights row on your profile, or open a story and tap Highlight.
2. Select the stories you want in it and tap Next.
3. On the naming screen, tap Edit Cover.
4. Tap the photo icon and choose your image.
5. Name the highlight in 14 characters or fewer and tap Add.

Where free highlight covers actually come from

Most results for free highlight covers are Pinterest boards and template packs that hand you a zip of images sized for whatever the designer felt like. That is where the cropping problem starts. A cover designed as a square gets stretched to 9:16 by Instagram and the icon drifts off centre.

A generator that outputs at the correct 1080 x 1920 with the icon centred solves it in one step. The Elev8or highlight cover maker is free, has no watermark, and lets you download the same icon set in one palette so the whole row matches.

Design rules that survive the 161 pixel render

• One icon per cover. Two competing shapes turn to mush at profile size.
• High contrast between icon and background. Beige on cream reads as an empty circle.
• Line weight of at least 3 percent of the icon width. Hairlines vanish.
• One palette across every cover. The set is what looks designed, not any individual cover.
• Avoid text inside the cover image. The label under it already carries the word.

What highlights are actually for

A tidy highlight row is worth very little on its own. Highlights earn their space when they answer the question a new visitor has before they decide to follow: what do you do, what do you sell, and what happens if I message you.

The highest converting pattern is a highlight that ends on a clear next step, usually asking people to comment or DM a keyword. That keyword can trigger an automatic reply with your link, so a profile visit turns into a conversation rather than a scroll. Comment to DM automation covers how the trigger works.