TikTok Photo Carousel Size in 2026: 1080x1920, 35 Photos and the JPEG Rule

A TikTok photo carousel, also called a photo post or photo mode, can hold up to 35 photos, and the size most guides recommend is 1080x1920 pixels (9:16, full screen). TikTok's developer documentation sets the hard file rules: JPEG or WebP only, up to 20 MB per photo, and no more than 1080p resolution. TikTok does not publish an official aspect ratio for photo posts, so 1080x1350 (4:5) and 1080x1080 (1:1) also appear in guides as alternatives, and how TikTok displays them may vary.

What size is a TikTok photo carousel?

We could not find a published photo-mode size from TikTok, so these figures come from 2026 guides (PostFast, Ayrshare) rather than TikTok itself:

Use one ratio for every slide, as PostFast also advises. How TikTok shows a photo that is not 9:16 (with bars, a blurred fill or a crop) is not documented and may change between app versions, so if you reuse 4:5 or square slides, post a test first. The 1080p ceiling also means there is no point designing larger than 1080x1920: through the API, anything above 1080p is out of spec.

How many photos can a TikTok carousel have?

Up to 35. TikTok's help centre says "You can add up to 35 photos", and the Content Posting API accepts up to 35 photos in one post, so the app and scheduling tools share the same ceiling. That is well above the 20 that Instagram and Threads allow.

The minimum is less clear. TikTok's own pages give only the maximum. PostFast says a photo post needs 2 to 35 photos, and another 2026 summary says 4 to 35, so the minimum is not documented and may vary. If a small set will not post as a carousel, add more photos rather than assuming a fixed number. Through the API, the title can be about 90 characters (TikTok counts in UTF-16 units, so some emoji use two) and the description up to 4,000.

What file formats does TikTok photo mode accept?

Through the API, which scheduling tools use, only JPEG and WebP. TikTok's Media Transfer Guide lists those two formats, a 20 MB maximum per image and a maximum resolution of 1080p. PNG is not on the list, and Ayrshare's TikTok documentation says plainly that PNG is not supported. How the TikTok app itself handles PNG is not documented either way.

The safe habit is to treat JPEG as the format for TikTok, whether you post from the app or through a scheduler. It is accepted everywhere TikTok documents, and every design tool can export it.

What gets covered on a TikTok photo?

The caption, username and buttons sit on top of the photo, so the edges of a 1080x1920 slide are not fully visible. TikTok does not publish one pixel-exact safe zone; instead, its Business Help Centre offers overlay files for each placement. Secondary guides give approximate figures:

• Keep about 320 px clear at the bottom.
• Keep about 120 px clear on the right.
• For ads, a centred safe area of about 900x1442 px is often quoted.

Treat these as approximate: they come from TryMyPost, not TikTok. Keep headlines and key numbers in the upper middle of each slide, and give the first slide the hook, since it is the one people see before they decide to swipe. The Instagram carousel guide has more on structuring slides; the same logic applies here.

How do you make TikTok carousel images at the right size?

Design at 1080x1920 from the start: a custom canvas in Canva or Figma, or the size in the first line of a Claude Design prompt ("Design a 10-slide TikTok photo carousel, every slide 1080x1920..."); the social post prompts show how to describe each slide. Claude Design downloads PNGs one artboard at a time, at 1x or 2x, with no option to export every slide at once, which gets slow at 20 or 35 slides.

Renda renders a whole HTML export as one PNG per slide, numbered in order. It has no TikTok preset, so choose Auto-detect, which renders your canvas at 2x: 2160x3840 for a 1080x1920 design. That is above the API's 1080p limit, and the API does not take PNG, so finish in a free converter such as Squoosh: resize each slide to 1080x1920 and save it as JPEG. On the free tier, each slide counts as one of your five PNGs a month.

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