Paste a link into Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, WhatsApp or X and a preview card appears with a picture, a title and a short description. That picture is your Open Graph image, and if you don’t set one deliberately, platforms either show nothing or pick a random image from the page.
The size to aim for
The most widely recommended size is 1200 x 630 pixels, which is a ratio of roughly 1.91 to 1. It works well on Facebook and LinkedIn and is displayed acceptably almost everywhere else. If you only make one version, make this one.
X (formerly Twitter) offers its own “large image” card format that favors a wider 2:1 shape. A 1200 x 630 image works there too, with only slight trimming at the edges. Platforms update their requirements now and then, so test with each platform’s own sharing debugger if the preview is important to you.
File size and format
Keep the file reasonably light, ideally under about 1 MB, since crawlers fetch it when someone shares your link. JPG is a good default for photographic images, and PNG is better when your image is mostly flat color and text. WebP is not supported equally well by every social platform, so stick with JPG or PNG for this particular job. You can compare options in JPG vs PNG vs WebP.
Keep important content in the safe zone
Platforms crop and round the corners differently, and mobile feeds trim the edges. Keep your key content, such as a headline or a face, well inside the center of the image, leaving a margin of at least 50 to 100 pixels on every side. This one habit prevents most cut-off text problems.
Text on the image
If you add a title to the image, make it big and brief. A few words at a large size stay readable when the card shrinks to a thumbnail in a feed. Long sentences become a gray blur.
How to add it to your page
The image is referenced in a meta tag in your page’s head:
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/my-share-image.jpg">Use a full, absolute URL. On WordPress, SEO plugins let you set this per post, and most use your featured image by default. That makes it worth sizing your featured image sensibly, as covered in the right WordPress featured image size.
Why isn’t the new image showing?
Platforms cache link previews. If you’ve changed the image but the old one still appears, use the platform’s debugging tool to force a re-fetch, for example Facebook’s Sharing Debugger. Other platforms may take a while to refresh on their own.
Quick checklist
- 1200 x 630 pixels
- JPG or PNG, under roughly 1 MB
- Important content in the middle
- Large, short text if any
- Absolute URL in the og:image tag
Resize your artwork to exactly 1200 x 630 using our free image resizer. For post-specific sizes on individual platforms, see our guides for LinkedIn and X.