Social Media Video Specs 2026: The Five Platform Cheat Sheet
SocialPro Team
Engineering & Editorial Team
2026-09-12• 3 min read
The master table
Platform
Canvas
Length limit
File size
Notes
TikTok
1080 by 1920, 9:16
10 min in app; longer uploads on some accounts
287.6MB mobile, 4GB web
Safe zones: top 120px, bottom 250px, right column
Instagram Reels
1080 by 1920, 9:16
3 min in app; longer uploads possible
4GB
Over 3 min not recommended to new audiences
YouTube Shorts
1080 by 1920, 9:16 or 1:1
3 min hard limit
Standard YouTube limits
181 seconds stops being a Short
Facebook Reels
1080 by 1920, 9:16
3 min
Under 1GB
Closed GOP 2 to 5s survives re encoding best
LinkedIn
16:9, 1:1 or 9:16
15 min native
5GB
Watched on mute; captions essential
The three numbers to memorise
1080 by 1920. 60 seconds. 250MB. A file inside those three numbers publishes everywhere without a warning. Each platform's own page above covers the full detail, including safe zones and the encoding settings that survive each platform's compression.
Why specs cause silent failures
Most failed publishes trace back to something on this page: a file over a limit, a ratio outside the accepted range, a duration the platform rejects, or audio flagged for licensing. The frustrating part is that platforms often reject these at publish time, hours after everyone stopped looking. That is the entire reason SocialPro checks every post against the current specs before the scheduled time and confirms delivery with the platform after it, so a spec problem becomes a fix at 2pm instead of a missing post discovered at 9am.
Frequently Asked Questions
Almost. A 1080 by 1920 H.264 MP4 at 30fps under 250MB plays cleanly on TikTok, Reels, Shorts and Facebook Reels. LinkedIn accepts it too. The differences that matter are duration limits, safe zones and captions, not the file itself.
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SocialPro Team
Editorial Team
Engineering & Editorial Team
Written by the SocialPro team, after eight years running a media agency. Every SocialPro article about posting is scheduled, approved and published through SocialPro itself.
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