Open Graph image size: 1200 by 630 and the safe zone

The numbers

Design for the crop

The same image appears as a wide card on Facebook and LinkedIn, a slightly different crop on X, and a square in some messaging apps and on small screens. Put the headline and any faces in the centre 630 by 630 area, keep text large enough to read at phone size, and leave the edges for background.

OG image size worked example

The post is invented. A 4000 by 2667 photo of a town clock is the featured image. The registered og-image size below produces a 1200 by 630 hard crop from the centre, which drops 40 percent of the height and keeps the clock face, because it sits in the middle of the frame. Exported as JPG at quality 82 the file is 164 KB; the same crop as WEBP is 118 KB; a PNG export would be about 1.4 MB and gain nothing. A single command produces the same crop outside WordPress, which is useful for a default image.

// functions.php: a hard-cropped 1200 x 630 rendition of every upload
add_image_size( 'og-image', 1200, 630, true );

# the same crop with ImageMagick, centre gravity, for a default share image
magick town-clock.jpg -resize 1200x630^ -gravity center -extent 1200x630 -quality 82 default-share.jpg

<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/town-clock-1200x630.jpg">
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1200">
<meta property="og:image:height" content="630">
<meta property="og:image:alt" content="The town clock face with the minute hand at ten past">

The three tags after the image URL let a network lay out the card before the file arrives, and give the picture a description. One more thing leaves with the crop: WordPress strips most embedded metadata from the resized copies it generates, so any Content Credentials or IPTC fields in the 4000 pixel original are absent from the 1200 by 630 file, as explained in what happens to Content Credentials when the card image is resized.

Set it up in WordPress

1. 01

   Register an image size

   In your theme, add_image_size( 'og-image', 1200, 630, true ); creates a hard-cropped version of each upload.

2. 02

   Regenerate thumbnails

   Existing uploads need the new size generated once.

3. 03

   Point your tags at it

   Your SEO plugin's social image setting, or your own og:image code, should use that size.

4. 04

   Add width and height tags

   og:image:width 1200 and og:image:height 630 let networks render the card on the first share.

Text on images

Headline text burned into the image helps in busy feeds but duplicates the title shown under the card. If you add text, keep it short, high contrast and away from the edges, and always set an alt text for the image through og:image:alt or twitter:image:alt.

Weight

A 1200 by 630 JPG or WEBP at sensible quality is usually between 80 and 250 KB. Much larger files load slowly in feeds and in the debugger; much smaller ones may look soft on high-density screens.

What goes wrong

• Pointing og:image at the original upload. A 4000 pixel, 6 MB photo is under Facebook's 8 MB limit but over X's 5 MB, loads slowly in the debugger, and is cropped by the network from the top left rather than the centre. Use the 1200 by 630 rendition.
• Soft crop. add_image_size without the fourth argument scales to fit and produces 1200 by 800 from a 3:2 photo. The card then crops unpredictably. Pass true.
• Faces at the edge. A portrait on the left third disappears in the square crop. Move the subject to the centre or use a different image.
• Text under 40 pixels tall. Readable on the desktop card, illegible on a phone at 360 pixels wide.
• Regenerating nothing. Registering the size only affects future uploads. Existing posts keep sharing whatever rendition exists until thumbnails are regenerated.
• Assuming metadata travels. The crop loses the embedded fields, and the networks strip more on upload; the chain is laid out in where metadata is stripped between upload and feed.

OG image size checklist

• The og:image file is exactly 1200 by 630; check with the browser's image info or the debugger's reported dimensions.
• The file is between about 80 and 250 KB and under 5 MB in every case.
• The subject and any text sit inside the centre 630 by 630 square; cover each side with a hand and confirm nothing important is hidden.
• og:image:width, og:image:height and og:image:alt are present and match the file.
• The card renders as a large image in the network's sharing debugger and, after a test share, in a messaging app's square preview.
• If the preview came out wrong anyway, the causes are listed in Facebook showing the wrong image or share text, and the wide card on X is covered in Twitter cards on X: tags and testing.

For the wider picture, see the Open Graph and link preview guides. Readers who get this far often also need adding Open Graph tags in WordPress or Facebook showing the wrong image or share text.

Sources

• Meta for Developers, Images in link shares (Internet Archive copy, June 2025)
• LinkedIn Post Inspector
• The Open Graph protocol

Questions

Related reading

1. 01Facebook showing the wrong image or share textFix Facebook showing the wrong image or text when you share a WordPress post: duplicate tags, small images, cache, blocked crawlers, and the Sharing Debugger.7 min read
2. 02Twitter cards on X: tags and testingSet up Twitter card tags so links to your WordPress posts show a large image on X: the summary_large_image card, fallbacks to Open Graph, sizes and testing.6 min read
3. 03Adding Open Graph tags in WordPressAdd Open Graph tags to WordPress with an SEO plugin or theme code: the four required tags, image tags, per-post overrides, and how to avoid duplicate tags.7 min read
4. 04Content Credentials on shared images: what survives a shareWhat C2PA Content Credentials are, why WordPress image sizes and social uploads often strip them, and how to keep provenance on the images you share.6 min read