How to make a collage for an Instagram story
- Open your photos. Drop them on the story. It opens on three bands; the Layout step has every layout drawn for the story shape.
- Look at the shaded bands. The top band is where the profile name and progress bar sit, the bottom band is the reply box. A sentence under Show what gets covered names any slot that reaches into them.
- Move what matters out of the bands. Drag the photo inside its slot, raise Outer edge in Style to pull everything in, or run Keep faces whole — then the sentence also checks the faces.
- Save. The file is 1080 × 1920 and the bands are not in it. On a phone, Share hands it straight to the share sheet.
Why the bands matter
A story fills the screen, and the app draws its own furniture on top of it: your name and a row of progress bars along the top, a reply box and buttons along the bottom. Anything you put there is still in the picture but partly hidden, and a face half under a reply box cannot be fixed after posting. The overlay here shades roughly 250 pixels at each end, which is where that furniture sits on most phones.
The heights are approximate — the app draws them differently on different phones and changes them now and then — so the overlay says when it was last checked. Treat the shaded area as a margin to keep faces and text out of, not as an exact line.
| Area | Height | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Profile name and progress bar | about 250 px | October 2026 |
| Reply box | about 250 px | October 2026 |
| Free for your photos | about 1420 px | — |
Layouts that suit a story
Story layouts are drawn separately from square ones, because columns that work on a square become slivers on a story. Bands — horizontal slots one above the other — are the natural shape, and the three-band layout this page opens on keeps the middle band, the one the eye lands on, clear of both overlays.
A title in a top band is drawn inside the covered area by default; on a story, put it in the bottom band with Outer edge raised, or over the photos, so it sits above the reply box.
Questions people ask about this one
What size is an Instagram story collage?
1080 × 1920 pixels, a 9:16 portrait. That is what this page saves.
Will the grey bands appear in my story?
No. They are drawn on the stage only; the renderer that writes your file does not draw them at all.
Can I post several photos as one story?
Yes — that is what the collage is. Up to thirty photos fit in one story-shaped picture, though six to nine read best on a phone.
How do I get it into Instagram?
Save it to your phone and add it as a story, or on a phone that supports it press Share and pick Instagram from the share sheet.
Is it uploaded anywhere?
No. It is made and saved on your device.
Where to go next
- Sized for InstagramOpens square, with the tall post and the story one tap away.
- WhatsApp collageFor your DP, inside the circle, or for your status.
- Aesthetic collageSoft colours, loose prints and a few stickers, story-shaped.
- Which size for which app1080 × 1080, 1080 × 1350 and 1080 × 1920, and what each one crops.