Instagram Highlight Cover Maker
Make a matching set of Instagram highlight covers — icons, emoji or words on black, beige, pastel or your own photo — see them on your profile, and download every one at 1080×1920.
On your profile
Me · 1 of 6
1080×1920. Instagram shows the circle in the middle — up to 1080 px across. Keep everything inside the dashed 720 px safe area and it survives the crop.
Story size, 9:16 — what Instagram expects, and what Edit cover fills best.
PNGs, numbered in the order they sit on your profile. On a phone, single PNGs are quicker — save each to your photos, then pick it in Edit cover.
How it works
How to make Instagram highlight covers
Pick a look
Beige, black, white, black and gold, pastel, sage, a gradient — or your own colour or photo behind every cover. The icon colour, line weight and ring go with it, so the set matches.
Name your highlights
It starts with Me, Friends, Travel, Food, Love and Work. Rename them, add Family, Birthday, Pets or Gym in a tap, or a blank one, and drop any you do not need.
Choose what each cover shows
An icon from the set of over 350 — search “beach”, “gym” or “cake” — an emoji, or a word such as ME or FAQ. The circles under the profile mock-up update as you go, light or dark.
Download and set them
Every cover as a 1080×1920 PNG in one ZIP, or one at a time. Save them to your phone’s photos and pick each one in Edit cover, below.
Setting them
How to add highlight covers on Instagram
Highlight covers are set in the Instagram app on your phone, one highlight at a time. Save the PNGs to your photos first, then:
| Change the cover of a highlight you have | Open your profile, press and hold the highlight, and tap Edit highlight → Edit cover. Tap the gallery icon to choose the cover from your photos, move and zoom it inside the circle, and tap Done, then Done again. |
| Start a new highlight | On your profile, tap New (or Story highlight), pick the stories it should hold and tap Next. Tap Edit cover, choose your cover from your photos, type the name, and tap Add. |
| Without posting the cover to your story | A cover chosen from your photos in Edit cover is never posted — it only becomes the circle. What a highlight does need is at least one story inside it, and that can be any story from your archive, however old. |
| Several covers at once | Save every PNG to your photos first (unzip the ZIP in Files on iPhone or your file manager on Android), then go through the highlights one by one. They are numbered in the order they sit on the profile. |
In Edit cover, move and zoom the picture until the icon sits evenly inside the circle. Everything here is drawn dead centre and within the safe area, so it only needs centring — and if it opens zoomed in, pinch out.
Sizes
Instagram highlight cover size
| What | Size | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Upload size | 1080 × 1920 px | A story frame, 9:16. Instagram gives no separate cover size; a cover starts as a story or a photo. |
| What shows | A circle, up to 1080 px | Cut from the middle of the frame. The top and bottom 420 px never show. |
| Safe area | 720 px circle | Keep the icon and any words inside it and nothing is cut, even after a small zoom in Edit cover. |
| On the profile | About 60 points | Roughly 150–200 real pixels on a modern phone — why bold, simple icons beat fine detail. |
| Name | Up to 15 characters | Only about the first nine show under the circle; the rest is cut off with “…”. |
| Format | PNG or JPG | Anything your photos app holds. These downloads are PNG, so flat colours stay crisp. |
| Stories in one highlight | Up to 100 | There is no published limit on how many highlights a profile can have. |
Guides quote different safe areas — 600, 720 or the full 1080 — because they leave different margins, not because the circle changes. The largest square that fits in a 1080 px circle is 764 px; 720 leaves a margin for any zoom in Edit cover. For the story the highlight is made of, the story generator works at the same 1080×1920, and the grid maker cuts the posts under the highlights into a matching grid.
Ideas
Highlight names for Instagram
Short names read best: one word, under ten letters, so the whole thing shows under the circle. A few that work, by the kind of account:
| Personal | Me · Friends · Family · Travel · Food · Love · Pets · Memories · Birthday · Brother · Sister · Gym |
| Aesthetic | Moments · Vibes · Daily · Sunsets · Café · Reads · Sky · Mood · Golden hour · Little things |
| Creator | About · Collabs · Behind · Q&A · Gear · Tips · Reels · Events · Press · Shop |
| Business | Menu · Prices · Reviews · FAQ · New in · Offers · Bookings · Results · Team · Contact |
Most profiles show four or five circles before the row scrolls, so put the highlights you most want seen first. Five to eight is plenty; past that, people rarely scroll to the end.
Questions