Twitter Header Size and Best Practices for 2021

Your Twitter header size can be a hard thing to nail down.

The official recommended Twitter header dimensions are 1500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall. 

However, creating a header that meets those requirements can’t guarantee your banner will look exactly how you want it to once your profile photo comes into play. 

If you have ever had trouble getting your header photo perfectly sized, don’t worry, you’re not alone. 

In this article, we will break down the Twitter header, tell you exactly how to accommodate your profile photo when creating your banner, and cover some header best practices that will make your profile look clean and professional.  

• What is a Twitter Header?
  • Twitter Header Size
  • Actual Twitter Header Dimensions
• Twitter Header Best Practices
  • Twitter Guidelines for Photos
  • Plan for Your Profile Photo

What is a Twitter Header?

The Twitter header is the first thing you see when viewing a Twitter profile. Also known as the Twitter banner, it is the landscape style photo that takes up the most real estate at the top of a profile.

It shares a space with a page’s profile photo, which fills the small circle in the bottom left corner at the top of a Twitter profile.

Twitter Header Size

The recommended dimensions for a Twitter header photo are 1500 px by 500 px. While that may seem straightforward and easy to accommodate, those dimensions aren’t true to what a user will see when viewing your profile. 

Making a header photo that meets those sizing requirements will ensure that the photo fits within the box at the top of your profile, but it won’t ensure your visitors see that photo as you intended. 

Getting that size right is only half the battle.

Actual Twitter Header Dimensions

While Twitter has provided us with the above guidelines, they are not as helpful as one might think. That is because Twitter has a quirky header photo that can actually be drastically affected by your profile photo. 

As you can see, the InMotion Hosting logo used for our profile photo blocks a section of our header.

So you might spend the time to make a perfectly sized header photo, only to find out once you upload it that your profile photo cuts off or blocks a significant part of it or makes it look silly. 

On top of that, your header photo will actually display differently depending on the resolution of the screen viewing your profile. That means it could look great on a phone but have an entirely different look on tablets. 

When you take all of that into consideration, the “safe area” for your header is more realistically only about 1500px by 360px.

Twitter Header Best Practices

Twitter headers can be finicky.

To avoid having to rework designs, we’ve got some suggested best practices to incorporate. 

Twitter Guidelines for Photos

For starters, it’s important to know what makes Twitter happy. If you want to have a good header, make sure you follow their recommendations.

Here are Twitter’s official guidelines for uploading photos:

• The recommended dimensions for your header photos are 1500px by 500px. All header photos have an aspect ratio of 3:1.
• Header and profile photos can be uploaded in any of the following formats: JPG, GIF, or PNG. Of note, Twitter does not currently support animated GIFs for header or profile images.
• Twitter recommends that header image file sizes and profile photos should be under 2MB for best results.

Plan for Your Profile Photo

Since we know that your profile picture is going to throw a wrench into the equation, plan accordingly. 

As we know, if you factor in your profile photo, your Twitter header is really only about 1500px by 360px.

That means your best bet to land a perfect header photo is to design your headers with your profile pic in mind. 

When you build your design around the profile picture, you ensure it won’t affect your header or block something important once you upload it.

Sticking to those dimensions should help you mitigate a lot of Twitter header headaches. 

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Creating the perfect Twitter header is easier said than done. 

While the social media platform provides their official recommended Twitter header dimensions for us to follow, those dimensions don’t take your profile photo into account. 

However, by adjusting your dimensions to accommodate for your profile photo and sticking to Twitter’s photo guidelines, you should have a good chance of making a Twitter header you can be proud of.  

If you enjoy social media and want to make it your main job, check out our guide on How to Become a Social Media Influencer.