# Free Reels, TikTok & Shorts Safe Zone Checker

> See exactly where Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts crop and cover your vertical thumbnail. Overlays the 4:5 profile grid crop, the centred safe square and the caption zone. Free, nothing uploaded.

Free, no account required. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

## How to use it

1. **Drop in your vertical cover.** A 1080×1920 image is ideal. Everything happens locally in your browser.
2. **Switch platform.** Each platform overlays its own crop lines and interface zones on your image.
3. **Move anything important inside the safe area.** Faces and text belong in the clear centre. Anything in a shaded band will be cropped away or covered by the interface.

## The 4:5 crop that ruins Instagram covers

Instagram asks for a 1080×1920 cover at 9:16, then shows a 1080×1440 crop of it on your profile grid. That is a 4:5 window taken from the middle. Anything you placed near the top or bottom of the canvas simply does not exist on your profile.

The fix is to keep the subject and any text inside the centred 1080×1080 square, which survives the grid crop, the feed and Explore. Then stay out of the bottom ~320 px, where the caption, account name and audio ticker are drawn over the top.

## TikTok covers the edges, not the middle

TikTok does not crop a 9:16 cover, but it draws over it: the like, comment, share and sound buttons run up the right-hand side, and the caption and username sit across the bottom left.

Compose towards the upper-left two thirds. A face centred slightly high and left reads cleanly; text along the bottom is competing with the caption for the same pixels.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the Instagram Reels cover safe zone?

Keep everything important inside the centred 1080×1080 square of your 1080×1920 canvas, and out of the bottom ~320 pixels. The centre square survives the 4:5 (1080×1440) crop Instagram applies on the profile grid, and the bottom band is where the caption and audio ticker are drawn.

### Why does my Reel cover look cut off on my profile?

Because the profile grid crops your 9:16 cover to 4:5 from the centre. Roughly the top and bottom sixth of the image is discarded there. Design for the centre square and it will look right in every placement.

### What size should a TikTok cover be?

1080×1920 at 9:16, the same as the video. TikTok does not crop it, but the right-hand action rail and the bottom caption cover the edges, so compose towards the upper-left.

### Do YouTube Shorts have a safe zone?

Yes. Shorts use a 1080×1920 9:16 cover, with the title, channel name and action buttons overlaid along the bottom and right. The same rule applies: keep the subject centred and high.

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Use it at https://thumbn.so/thumbnail-safe-zones — part of [Thumbn](https://thumbn.so), AI thumbnail generator for YouTube, TikTok and Reels.