# 7rats > 7rats is an app for iPhone and iPad that puts any photo on an Instagram-ready canvas with a clean border, so photographers can post the whole frame instead of a crop of it. The exported file keeps the photo at its native resolution. Everything runs on the device: no accounts, no uploads. Instagram trims photos that do not match the aspect ratios its feed supports. Photographers who care about composition end up either cropping the shot or letting the app pick what to cut. 7rats solves this by resizing the *canvas* instead of the photo: it builds a canvas at an Instagram-ready ratio around your full frame and fills the leftover space with a border color you choose. The photo itself is never cropped, scaled down or re-encoded at a lower resolution. ## Who it's for Photographers, designers and anyone posting to Instagram who wants the whole frame visible: wide landscapes, tall portraits, film scans with rebate, and any shot whose composition breaks when it is cropped to 4:5 or square. ## What it does - **No crop, ever** - your whole photo sits on the canvas untouched, at its native resolution, with a border filling whatever space is left over. - **Every Instagram fit** - square (1:1), portrait (4:5) and 3:4, the ratios the feed shows without trimming. - **Orientation aware** - the canvas orients itself to the shot, so a wide photo gets a wide frame rather than an awkward tall one. - **Your border, your color** - seven handpicked colors, including white, black, cream and charcoal, and a thickness you can dial in from a thin edge to a bold frame. - **Rotate to fit** - any photo can be rotated to suit the canvas. - **Batch mode** - style up to ten photos in one pass, each with its own shape, color and margin. - **Full-resolution export** - saves to Photos and opens the share sheet, where Instagram appears if it is installed. - **iPad layout** - the same editor with the photo on the left and every control in a rail on the right. - **Private by design** - photos are processed entirely on-device. No accounts, no uploads, no photo data ever reaches a server. ## Platform and pricing - Works with iPhone and iPad. - Free to use, supported by a single banner ad inside the app. - A one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 (US App Store) removes the ad. The ad is never added to an exported image. ## Common questions - **How do I post a whole photo to Instagram without cropping it?** Open the photo in 7rats, pick an Instagram-ready ratio (4:5, 1:1 or 3:4), and the app builds a canvas at that ratio around your full frame with a border in the leftover space. Export at full resolution and post from Instagram as usual. - **Does it crop or shrink the photo?** No. The canvas is built around the photo at its native resolution; color profile and orientation are preserved. - **Can it post to Instagram directly?** No app can. 7rats saves to Photos and opens the share sheet, from which Instagram can be selected. - **Is it private?** Yes. Everything happens on the device; the only network access is the banner ad, which the one-time unlock removes. - **Which devices?** Works with iPhone and iPad. ## Topics post uncropped photos to Instagram, no crop Instagram app, Instagram border app, whole photo Instagram, fit photo to Instagram size, white border photo app, Instagram 4:5 resizer, photo border app for iPhone, full resolution Instagram export, on-device photo editing. ## Contact - Contact form: https://sevenrats.com/#contact - Support: https://sevenrats.com/support.html - Email: contact@exovoid.eu - Typical response time: under 2 business days - Publisher: Exovoid Ltd., bul. Cherni Vrah 47A, 1404 Sofia, Bulgaria - Developer site: https://exovoid.tech - Exovoid's own site, where 7rats is listed alongside its other work. ## Guides Reference material on what Instagram does to a photograph, maintained alongside the app. - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - the feed accepts 1.91:1 to 3:4; what Instagram's own fit button does and why its border is not yours. - [Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html) - every ratio and pixel size that matters, plus the ratios real cameras shoot and how far outside the accepted range each falls. - [Why the profile grid crops the sides, not the top](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html) - the grid is 3:4, narrower than 4:5 or 1:1, so it removes width rather than height. - [What Instagram does to your photo on upload](https://sevenrats.com/does-instagram-compress-photos.html) - downscaled to 1080 wide, re-encoded as JPEG, EXIF stripped; what still helps and what is folklore. - [How to post a panorama](https://sevenrats.com/post-panorama-instagram.html) - the carousel split against the bordered canvas, and which suits which photograph. - [How to choose a no-crop app](https://sevenrats.com/best-no-crop-app-instagram.html) - Instagram's own composer already adds a border for free; the five criteria that separate a dedicated app from it, and how to test each one. - [Adding a border to a photo on iPhone](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-border-app-iphone.html) - why the Photos app cannot extend a canvas, and how to choose the color, thickness and shape. ## Links - [Website](https://sevenrats.com) - [Guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) - [Features](https://sevenrats.com/#features) - [FAQ](https://sevenrats.com/#faq) - [Support](https://sevenrats.com/support.html) - [Privacy Policy](https://sevenrats.com/privacy.html) --- # Full text Every page on sevenrats.com as plain text, generated from the pages themselves. --- ## Your whole photo on Instagram. No crop, no zoom. Source: https://sevenrats.com/ Runs entirely on your device 7rats puts any photo on an Instagram-ready canvas with a clean border, so the feed shows the frame you shot instead of a crop of it. Free to use. $4.99 to remove ads. ### What it does Three taps and you're done: choose the fit, choose a border, export at full quality. Rotate a frame to fit, or run up to ten photos through batch mode at once. Nothing ever leaves your device. #### Portrait, no crop Your whole photo sits on the canvas untouched, with a clean border filling whatever space is left over. #### Landscape too The canvas orients itself to the shot, so a wide photo gets a wide frame instead of an awkward tall one. ### Works on iPad The same editor, laid out for the bigger screen: your photo on the left, every control in a rail on the right. ### Frequently asked #### How do I post a whole photo to Instagram without cropping it? Open the photo in 7rats, pick an Instagram ready ratio such as 4:5, 1:1 or 3:4, and the app builds a canvas at that ratio around your full frame, filling the leftover space with a border color you choose. Export to Photos at full resolution and post it from Instagram as usual. The feed shows the whole image, because it is already the right shape. #### Does 7rats crop or shrink my photo? No. It builds the canvas around your photo at its native resolution and adds a solid border, so the color profile and orientation stay exactly as they were. #### Which Instagram sizes does it support? Square (1:1), portrait (4:5) and 3:4, the ratios the feed shows without trimming. The canvas also orients itself to the shot, so a wide photo gets a wide frame instead of an awkward tall one. If you are not sure which to pick, we walk through [which Instagram ratio to use](https://sevenrats.com/support.html#which-ratio) on the support page. #### Can it post to Instagram for me? It saves a full resolution file to Photos and opens the share sheet, where Instagram shows up if it is installed. No third party app can post to the feed directly. #### What does the $4.99 unlock do? It hides the single banner ad in the free editor. The ad is never added to your exported image, it only appears inside the app. Changed device or reinstalled? Here is how to [restore the ad-free purchase](https://sevenrats.com/support.html#restore-purchase). #### Is my data private? Yes. Everything happens on your device. There are no accounts and no uploads, and the only network access is the ad, which you can remove. #### Which iPhone and iPad models does 7rats work with? 7rats works with iPhone and iPad running iOS 18.4 onwards. On iPad the editor lays out with your photo on the left and every control in a rail on the right. The App Store listing shows the current minimum software version. #### Can I do more than one photo at a time? Yes. Batch mode takes up to ten photos in one pass, and each one keeps its own shape, border color and margin. It is the practical way to keep a carousel or a run of posts looking consistent. ### Guides ### Get in touch Questions, bugs, or ideas for the app? We usually reply within two business days. --- ## Instagram guides for photographers Source: https://sevenrats.com/guides.html What actually happens to a photograph when it goes onto Instagram - which shapes survive the feed, what the profile grid does afterwards, and what the upload costs you. Written for people who care about the frame they shot. Everything here is checked against Instagram’s current behavior rather than copied from older guides, several of which are now wrong in specific, testable ways. ### Start here - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - the accepted range, Instagram’s own fit button and its one catch, and how to put the whole frame on an accepted canvas. - [Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html) - every ratio and pixel size that matters, plus what your camera actually shoots and how far outside the range it lands. ### Going deeper - [Why the profile grid crops the sides, not the top](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html) - the grid is 3:4 and narrower than almost everything you post. How much each shape loses, and how to set the thumbnail yourself. - [What Instagram does to your photo on upload](https://sevenrats.com/does-instagram-compress-photos.html) - downscaled to 1080, re-encoded as JPEG, EXIF stripped. What still makes a difference and what is folklore. - [How to post a panorama without losing the frame](https://sevenrats.com/post-panorama-instagram.html) - the carousel split against the bordered canvas, and which one suits which photograph. ### Choosing an app - [How to choose a no-crop app](https://sevenrats.com/best-no-crop-app-instagram.html) - Instagram already adds a border for free, so anything else has to earn its place. The five things that separate one app from another, and how to test them. - [Adding a border to a photo on iPhone](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-border-app-iphone.html) - why the Photos app cannot do it, which color and thickness to choose, and which canvas shape suits which frame. **7rats** puts any photo on an Instagram-ready canvas with a clean border, so the feed shows the frame you shot instead of a crop of it. It runs entirely on your iPhone or iPad - no accounts, no uploads - and it is free to use. [See how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). --- ## How to choose a no-crop app for Instagram Source: https://sevenrats.com/best-no-crop-app-instagram.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **Start by not installing anything.** Instagram’s own composer will fit a whole photo and add a border for you: open the composer, pinch outwards on the image, and the frame stops being cropped. It costs nothing and it is already on your phone. What it will not do is let you choose the border color, set the margin, or give you the same result on the next photo. If those matter, a dedicated app is worth it - and then only five things actually separate one from another. ### Try the free option first Any page that recommends an app without mentioning this is selling you something. Instagram has had a fit-to-frame gesture for years: in the composer, pinch outwards and the photo shrinks to fit inside an accepted shape, with a border filling the rest. It has exactly one catch, and it is a real one. You do not choose the border. Instagram picks it, usually a blurred, stretched copy of your own photo or a flat color it decides on, and you get no say in the margin. For a snapshot that is fine. For a body of work where the border is part of the presentation, it is the difference between a frame and an accident. The other catch is consistency. Two photos processed this way do not reliably match, which is visible the moment they sit next to each other on a profile. ### The five things that matter Most listings of “best no-crop apps” compare interfaces. Interfaces are the least durable thing about an app. These five are what you actually live with. | What to check | Why it matters | The failure mode | | --- | --- | --- | | Export resolution | The canvas should be built around your photo at its native size | Some apps export at a fixed 1080 or 2048 wide, discarding detail before Instagram ever sees the file | | Where it runs | On-device means the photograph never leaves your phone | Server-side processing hands over your full-resolution original and its metadata | | Border control | Color and margin are the whole reason to use an app instead of the pinch gesture | A fixed white border is barely an improvement on what you already have | | Ratio coverage | 1:1, 4:5 and 3:4 are what the feed shows without trimming | An app that stops at 1:1 and 4:5 predates the May 2025 change and misses the grid shape | | How it is paid for | Ads inside an app are harmless; watermarks on the export are not | A free tier that brands your photograph, or a subscription for a one-afternoon task | Ratio coverage is the one most often out of date. Instagram accepted nothing taller than 4:5 until [28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/), and any app still offering only square and 4:5 has not been updated since. ### Testing them in about a minute You do not have to take a listing’s word for any of the five. Install, export one photo, and check the result before you commit to a workflow. 1. **Export one photo and open it in Photos.** Swipe up on the exported file to see its dimensions. If your original was 4000 pixels wide and the export is 1080 or 2048, the app downscaled it and the detail is already gone. 2. **Look at the corners at full zoom.** This is where a free-tier watermark hides. An ad inside the app is not the same thing and does not touch the file. 3. **Turn on airplane mode and export again.** An app that processes on-device carries on working. One that needs a server cannot, which tells you where your photograph was going. 4. **Check the ratio list for 3:4.** Its absence dates the app, and 3:4 is the only canvas that reaches the profile grid uncut. ### Where 7rats lands 7rats is our app, so treat this as a description rather than a verdict - the four tests above are there so you do not have to trust it. - **Export resolution.** The canvas is built around the photo at its native resolution. Nothing is scaled down, re-encoded smaller, or resampled on the way out. - **Where it runs.** Entirely on the device. There are no accounts and no uploads, and the app works in airplane mode. The only network access in the free version is the banner ad. - **Border control.** Seven colors, including white, black, cream and charcoal, with an adjustable thickness from a thin edge to a bold frame. - **Ratio coverage.** Square 1:1, portrait 4:5 and 3:4, with the canvas orienting itself to the shot. Any photo can be rotated to fit. - **How it is paid for.** Free, with a single banner ad inside the editor and no watermark on anything you export. A one-time $4.99 purchase removes the ad. There is no subscription. - **More than one at a time.** Batch mode styles up to ten photos in one pass, each with its own settings. **7rats** puts any photo on an Instagram-ready canvas with a clean border, at the photo’s native resolution, entirely on your iPhone or iPad. [Get it on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6809198070), or [see how it works](https://sevenrats.com/) first. ### Common questions #### Do I need an app to post without cropping? Not always. Pinching out in Instagram’s own composer fits the whole photo and adds a border for you, free. What it does not give you is a choice of border color, control over the margin, or the same result twice running. An app earns its place when the border is meant to be part of the photograph. #### Do no-crop apps reduce photo quality? A good one does not. The canvas is built around the photo at its native resolution, so nothing is scaled down before the file leaves your device. Instagram downscales to 1080 pixels wide on upload whichever app made the file, so what matters is what happened before that. #### Are free no-crop apps safe to use? It depends on whether the photo leaves your device. On-device processing sends the image nowhere. Server-side processing hands over your full-resolution original and whatever metadata it carried. The privacy policy and the App Store privacy label tell you which one you are installing, and airplane mode tells you for certain. #### Do no-crop apps add a watermark? Some do on a free tier, which defeats the point of protecting a composition. Export one photo and look at the corners at full size before committing. A watermark on the file is a different thing from an ad shown inside the app, which never touches the image. #### Which aspect ratios should a no-crop app offer? At minimum 1:1, 4:5 and 3:4 - the shapes the feed shows without trimming. 3:4 matters most, because it is both the tallest shape the feed accepts and the shape of the profile grid cell, so it is the only canvas that survives in both places uncut. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - the 1080-pixel downscale every app’s output is subject to, and the accepted ratio range. - [Adam Mosseri, 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/) - 3:4 support, the change that dates an app’s ratio list. ### Related - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - [Adding a border to a photo on iPhone](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-border-app-iphone.html) - [What Instagram does to your photo on upload](https://sevenrats.com/does-instagram-compress-photos.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) --- ## What Instagram does to your photo on upload Source: https://sevenrats.com/does-instagram-compress-photos.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **Three things happen to every photo you post, and none of them can be switched off:** it is downscaled to at most 1080 pixels wide, re-encoded as JPEG, and stripped of its EXIF metadata. Your followers never see your file. They see Instagram’s version of it. That is worth saying plainly, because a lot of app marketing implies otherwise. No editor, ours included, can deliver a full-resolution photo into the feed. What an editor controls is what goes into the pipeline - and that still matters. ### The downscale to 1080 Instagram serves feed images at up to 1080 pixels on the long edge of the width. A 4000-pixel-wide export and a 1200-pixel-wide export arrive at the same place: a 1080-wide JPEG. This one is documented rather than observed: Instagram’s [help center](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) states that a photo shared at a higher resolution “is sized down to a width of 1080 pixels.” The reason to export large anyway is that downscaling is not lossy in the way compression is - it is an average. Starting from more pixels gives the resampler more information to average, and the result holds fine detail better than the same image upscaled or re-sharpened from something smaller. The difference is real but modest, and it is the last few percent, not a transformation. ### The JPEG re-encode After the downscale, Instagram encodes the result as JPEG at its own quality setting. This is where visible damage happens, and it does not fall evenly across an image. JPEG is the only still format Instagram works in: Meta’s own [content publishing documentation](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-platform/content-publishing) states that “JPEG is the only image format supported.” | Content | How it survives | Why | | --- | --- | --- | | Flat color, borders, sky | Very well | Little detail to discard; JPEG stores smooth areas cheaply. | | Skin, soft gradients | Well | Gentle transitions compress without obvious artefacts. | | Fine texture - foliage, fabric, grain | Poorly | High-frequency detail is the first thing a JPEG encoder throws away. | | Hard edges against flat color | Poorly | Produces visible ringing, the classic halo around text and lines. | | Deep saturated reds | Poorly | Chroma is stored at reduced resolution, and red suffers most. | If you shoot heavy grain or fine texture and it turns mushy in the feed, this row is why. It is not your export settings. ### The metadata strip EXIF does not survive. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, lens, timestamp and GPS coordinates are all removed before the image is served. This cuts both ways. **The privacy side is good:** posting a photo taken at home does not publish your address. **The attribution side is not:** if you rely on embedded copyright or contact fields, they are gone, and anything you want credited has to be visible in the image or written in the caption. ### What actually helps 1. **Export at an accepted aspect ratio.** The single biggest quality win, and it is not about compression at all. If Instagram has to crop your photo to fit, you lose whole regions of the frame - a far bigger loss than any amount of JPEG artefacting. 2. **Export at 1080 wide or more, never less.** Below 1080 Instagram may upscale, which is the one genuinely bad outcome: you get the softness of an enlargement plus the compression on top. 3. **Do your sharpening before export, gently.** Sharpening survives the downscale; over-sharpening creates exactly the hard edges JPEG handles worst, so it comes back as halos. 4. **Upload over a good connection.** Instagram has historically been more aggressive when the client reports a poor network. Uploading on WiFi rather than a weak mobile signal occasionally makes a visible difference. **Where 7rats fits.** It handles the first item on that list: the canvas is built at an accepted ratio around your full frame, at the photo’s native resolution, with a border filling the rest. Everything happens on your iPhone or iPad, with no upload and no account. [See how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). ### Things that do not help A few pieces of advice circulate widely and do nothing measurable. - **Uploading a PNG.** It is re-encoded to JPEG regardless. You upload a larger file for the same result. - **Posting through a browser instead of the app.** The same pipeline runs on the server side. - **Turning on any “high quality uploads” toggle.** Where a setting like this exists it governs the upload, not what the feed serves. The 1080 ceiling stays. - **Adding a tiny amount of noise to “beat” the compressor.** Noise is high-frequency detail, which is precisely what the encoder discards first. It spends your bit budget rather than protecting it. ### Common questions #### Does Instagram compress photos? Yes, always. Feed images are served at up to 1080 pixels wide and re-encoded as JPEG. There is no setting that turns it off and no account tier that avoids it. #### Can I post at full resolution? No. Whatever you upload is downscaled for the feed. Exporting at full resolution still helps, because the downscale starts from more detail, but the version other people see is never your original file. #### Why is it sharp in Photos but soft on Instagram? Because the copy in Photos is your file and the copy in the feed is Instagram’s re-encode of it. If an export looks right on your device and soft in the feed, the compression is Instagram’s, not your editor’s. #### Does Instagram remove EXIF data? Yes. Camera settings, timestamps and GPS coordinates do not survive. Your location is not published with the photo - and neither is your camera data if you wanted it there. #### Does adding a border make quality worse? No. A border is flat color, which costs a JPEG encoder almost nothing. The loss people notice after adding a border comes from the upload, which would have happened anyway. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - the downscale to 1080 pixels wide, and the 320-pixel floor below which a photo is enlarged instead. - [Meta: Instagram Platform content publishing](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-platform/content-publishing) - “JPEG is the only image format supported.” The metadata strip is not documented anywhere by Meta. It is consistent, observable behavior rather than a published specification, and this page treats it as such. ### Related - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - [Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html) - [Why the profile grid crops the sides](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) --- ## Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes: a photographer’s reference Source: https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **The feed accepts anything from 1.91:1 at the widest to 3:4 at the tallest. Export 1080 pixels wide or more. If you want one number to remember, use 3:4 at 1080 × 1440.** 3:4 is the only ratio that is simultaneously the tallest the feed allows and the exact shape of the profile grid cell. Everything else involves giving something up in one place or the other. ### The feed: accepted range and sizes Divide width by height. Anything landing between **0.75 and 1.91** posts whole. Outside that, Instagram trims to the nearest shape it can render. | Ratio | Decimal | Pixels | Use it when | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 3:4 portrait | 0.75 | 1080 × 1440 | Default choice. Tallest in feed, exact fit in grid. | | 4:5 portrait | 0.80 | 1080 × 1350 | The long-standing safe option, still fine. | | 1:1 square | 1.00 | 1080 × 1080 | A deliberate square look, or a carousel of mixed shapes. | | 1.91:1 landscape | 1.91 | 1080 × 566 | The widest allowed. Small in feed, badly cut in grid. | 3:4 became natively supported on 28 May 2025. A guide that calls 4:5 the tallest accepted shape was written before that and is worth distrusting on everything else too. ### Every other surface The feed is one of several places your image appears, each with its own shape. The grid one is the trap, because it applies to a post that already passed the feed. | Surface | Ratio | Pixels | Note | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Profile grid cell | 3:4 | - | Crops width off the sides of anything wider than 0.75. | | Stories | 9:16 | 1080 × 1920 | Keep text clear of the top and bottom for the interface. | | Reels | 9:16 | 1080 × 1920 | The grid shows a 3:4 slice of the cover. | | Profile picture | 1:1 | 320 × 320 | Displayed as a circle, so keep the subject centered. | ### What your camera actually shoots This is the table most size guides leave out, and it is the one that explains why you are here. Very little camera equipment produces a ratio Instagram is happy with vertically. | Source | Ratio | Horizontal | Vertical | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Full frame and APS-C, 35mm film | 3:2 | 1.50 - fine | 0.67 - too tall, cropped | | Micro Four Thirds, most compacts | 4:3 | 1.33 - fine | 0.75 - exactly the limit | | iPhone main camera | 4:3 | 1.33 - fine | 0.75 - exactly the limit | | Medium format 6×7 | 7:6 | 1.17 - fine | 0.86 - fine | | Panorama, 65mm film | ~3:1 | 3.00 - too wide, cropped | - | | Phone screenshot | 9:16 | - | 0.56 - too tall, cropped | The pattern: shoot horizontally and Instagram is relaxed; shoot vertically and you are at or over the limit almost immediately. A vertical frame off any full-frame camera is already outside the range before you have made a single decision. ### When your ratio falls outside You have three options, and they are genuinely different choices rather than better and worse versions of the same thing. 1. **Let Instagram crop.** Fastest. You lose the edges of the frame and Instagram decides which edges. 2. **Crop it yourself.** You keep control of the composition and still lose the parts you cut. Right when the photo has room to lose. 3. **Change the canvas, not the photo.** Put the whole frame on a 3:4, 4:5 or 1:1 canvas and fill the leftover space with a border. Nothing is cut; the photo sits smaller within the post. **The third option is what 7rats does.** Pick the ratio, pick a border color, set the margin, export at the photo’s native resolution. It runs entirely on your iPhone or iPad - no accounts, no uploads, free to use. [See how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). ### Pixel sizes that matter Only one number really counts: **1080 wide**. That is what the feed serves, so it is the floor you should never export below. Exporting larger is worth doing - the downscale starts from more detail - but the returns flatten quickly, and nothing you upload arrives intact. A 6000-pixel export and a 2000-pixel export both become a 1080-wide JPEG. Exporting *smaller* than 1080 is the one clear mistake: Instagram upscales it, and you get the softness of an enlargement plus the compression on top. ### Common questions #### What is the best aspect ratio for Instagram? 3:4. It is the tallest shape the feed accepts, so it takes the most screen as someone scrolls, and it is the exact shape of the grid cell, so nothing is trimmed there either. No other ratio is optimal in both places at once. #### What size should an Instagram photo be in pixels? 1080 wide is the number that matters. Export at 1080 or larger, never smaller. The matching heights are 1440 for 3:4, 1350 for 4:5 and 1080 for square. #### Is 4:5 still the tallest ratio allowed? No. Instagram added native 3:4 support on 28 May 2025, and 3:4 is taller. Any guide naming 4:5 as the tallest accepted shape predates that change. #### Which ratio does a full-frame camera shoot? 3:2 - 1.5 horizontally, 0.667 vertically. Horizontal sits inside the accepted range and posts uncropped. Vertical is taller than the 0.75 limit, so it gets cropped. #### What happens if my photo is outside the range? Instagram crops it to the nearest shape it can display. To avoid that, put the whole photo on a canvas that is already an accepted shape and let a border fill the leftover space. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - the 320-to-1080 pixel width band, the 566-to-1350 pixel heights at 1080 wide, and the statement that an unsupported ratio “will be cropped to fit a supported ratio.” It still gives 4:5 as the tallest. - [Adam Mosseri, 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/) - 3:4 support for single photos and carousels, which the help center page above has not yet caught up with. ### Related - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - [Posting panoramas and wide landscapes](https://sevenrats.com/post-panorama-instagram.html) - [Why the profile grid crops the sides](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) --- ## Add a border to a photo on iPhone for Instagram Source: https://sevenrats.com/instagram-border-app-iphone.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **A border is not decoration here - it is the mechanism.** Instagram crops any photo whose shape it does not accept. Put the whole frame on a canvas that is already an accepted shape, fill the leftover space with a color, and there is nothing left to crop. The Photos app cannot do it. Cropping, rotating and adjusting all work on the image itself; none of them make the canvas bigger than the photograph, which is what a border is. ### Why Photos cannot do it This trips people up because it feels like something the built-in editor should handle. It does not, and the reason is worth understanding: every tool in Photos operates on the image area. Crop removes some of it. Rotate turns it. The adjustments change its pixels. None of them can add space that is not part of the photograph. Markup looks like a workaround - draw a rectangle, place it over the edges - but that covers the outside of your photo rather than adding a margin around it. You lose the edges you were trying to protect. Extending the canvas is a different operation, and it is what a border app does. ### Pick the canvas shape first The shape decides how much border you end up with, so choose it before the color. These are the shapes the feed displays without trimming. | Canvas | Pixels at 1080 wide | Best for | | --- | --- | --- | | 3:4 | 1080 × 1440 | The tallest the feed accepts, and the only shape the profile grid shows uncut | | 4:5 | 1080 × 1350 | The long-standing portrait default; slightly less feed height than 3:4 | | 1:1 | 1080 × 1080 | Wide and panoramic frames, which need the least border on a square | A landscape photo on a square canvas gets thin bands above and below. The same photo on a 3:4 canvas gets much thicker ones, because the canvas is taller but the photo is not. Wider frames generally want a squarer canvas. ### Choosing the color The border is part of the photograph once it is posted, so the color is a compositional decision rather than a setting. - **White** is the safe default. It reads as a gallery mount, lifts a bright photograph, and matches Instagram’s own light background closely enough that the post can look borderless on the feed’s terms. - **Black** suits dark, high-contrast and night photography, and holds a post together for anyone browsing in dark mode. On a light feed it is assertive, which can be the point. - **Cream and charcoal** are the useful in-betweens. They soften the boundary instead of drawing one, which suits film scans and muted palettes where pure white looks clinical. - **A color pulled from the photo** works when it is genuinely muted. A saturated border competes with the image, and on a grid of posts it is the first thing that looks dated. Whichever you pick, pick it once. A profile where every post has a different border color reads as a series of experiments; one consistent color reads as a body of work. ### How thick to make it Thickness changes what the border means. A thin edge is a frame line: it separates the photo from the feed without asking for attention. A thick margin is a mount: it presents the photograph, and makes it smaller on screen. There is a trade-off worth being deliberate about. Every pixel of border is a pixel that is not your photograph, and Instagram downscales the whole canvas to 1080 pixels wide regardless. A very thick border on a 3:4 canvas can leave the photo itself occupying only a few hundred pixels of that width. For most work a thin to moderate edge is the right answer. Reserve the heavy mount for square canvases holding wide frames, where the border is doing structural work rather than decorative. ### Doing a set at once Consistency is easier to talk about than to maintain one photo at a time. If you are posting a carousel, or a run of images over a week, doing them in a single pass is what keeps the margins and the color actually identical. **7rats** does this on iPhone and iPad: seven border colors including white, black, cream and charcoal, adjustable thickness, 1:1, 4:5 and 3:4 canvases, rotation, and a batch mode for up to ten photos at a time, each with its own settings. Everything runs on the device and exports at the photo’s native resolution. [Get it on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6809198070), or [see how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). ### Common questions #### How do I add a white border to a photo on iPhone? Put the photo on a canvas at an Instagram-ready shape - 1:1, 4:5 or 3:4 - and fill the leftover space with white. The Photos app cannot do this on its own, because its tools work on the image rather than the canvas around it. #### Can the iPhone Photos app add a border? No. Photos can crop, rotate and adjust, but it cannot make the canvas larger than the photograph. Markup can draw a rectangle over an image, which covers the edges of the photo rather than adding space around it. #### Should the border be white or black? White is the safer default: it reads as a mount, lifts a bright photograph, and blends into Instagram’s light background. Black suits dark and high-contrast work and holds up in dark mode. Consistency across a profile matters more than which of the two you choose. #### Does adding a border lower the photo’s quality? No. The border is added around the photo rather than over it, so the image keeps its own pixels at its native resolution. Instagram downscales the whole canvas to 1080 pixels wide on upload, as it would with any file. #### Can I add borders to several photos at once? In 7rats, yes - batch mode styles up to ten photos in one pass, each with its own shape, color and margin. It is the practical way to keep a carousel or a week of posts consistent. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - the 1080-pixel width the finished canvas is downscaled to, and the pixel heights for each accepted shape. - [Adam Mosseri, 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/) - 3:4 as an accepted canvas shape. ### Related - [How to choose a no-crop app for Instagram](https://sevenrats.com/best-no-crop-app-instagram.html) - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - [Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) --- ## Why the Instagram profile grid crops the sides, not the top Source: https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **The profile grid uses 3:4 thumbnails, and 3:4 is narrower than almost everything people post.** A 4:5 portrait is 0.80 wide-to-tall; a square is 1.0; the grid cell is 0.75. Fitting a wider shape into a narrower cell means losing width. The grid takes it off both sides, from the center outwards. This catches people out because the feed crop works the other way round - it usually trims height. Two different crops, two different axes, and a lot of guides state this one backwards. ### The grid cell is a shape, not a square For most of Instagram’s life the profile grid was square, and the advice that came with it was simple: post square and what you see is what the grid shows. In January 2025 the grid moved to **3:4** cells, and that advice stopped being true without anyone announcing it loudly. The important part is the direction. 3:4 is *taller and thinner* than a square. When Instagram fits your post into that cell, it matches the height and then cuts whatever width does not fit. Your subject keeps its top and bottom and loses its edges. ### What each shape loses The loss is arithmetic, not judgement. Divide the grid ratio by yours and you have the fraction of width that survives. | You post | Ratio | Width kept | What the grid does | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 3:4 portrait | 0.75 | 100% | Nothing to cut. The cell and the post are the same shape. | | 4:5 portrait | 0.80 | about 94% | A thin strip off each side. Usually harmless. | | Square | 1.00 | 75% | A quarter of the width gone, split between the two sides. | | Landscape 1.91:1 | 1.91 | about 39% | Most of the frame. The grid keeps a tall slice from the middle. | This is why a landscape photo can post perfectly into the feed and still look wrecked on your profile: the feed accepted 1.91:1 happily, and then the grid cut it down to a narrow center slice. ### Choosing the thumbnail yourself You are not stuck with the center cut. Instagram lets you set which part of an image the grid shows, per post, after it is published. 1. **Open the post on your profile.** Tap the ⋯ menu in the corner of the post itself, not the one on your profile header. 2. **Look for the grid or thumbnail option.** Instagram has moved and renamed this more than once; it sits with the editing options rather than the sharing ones. 3. **Drag to choose the slice.** You are choosing which 3:4 region of the image the cell displays. You cannot make it show more than 3:4 worth - only which 3:4. Useful for rescuing individual posts. Not a strategy: doing it for every landscape photo you own is slower than exporting the right shape in the first place. **The other way round it.** If the photo sits on a 3:4 canvas with a border filling the leftover space, the grid cell and your file are the same shape, so nothing is cut - the border absorbs the difference. That is what 7rats does, on your iPhone or iPad, with no upload and no account. [See how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). ### Posting for the grid vs. posting for the feed These two goals pull in slightly different directions, and which one wins depends on how people find your work. **The feed is where strangers see a post once.** Taller is bigger: a 3:4 post occupies more screen than a square one, and more screen is more attention as someone scrolls. **The grid is where someone decides whether to follow you.** It is the first thing a visitor sees, twelve posts at a time, and consistency across those twelve does more work than any single image. A grid of full frames on a consistent border reads as deliberate in a way that a grid of arbitrary center-crops does not. If you only take one rule from this page: **3:4 satisfies both.** It is the tallest shape the feed accepts and the exact shape the grid wants. There is no other ratio that is optimal in both places at once. ### Common questions #### What aspect ratio is the Instagram profile grid? 3:4, or 0.75. The grid moved from square thumbnails to 3:4 in January 2025. A post that is already 3:4 fills its grid cell exactly, with nothing trimmed. #### Why does the grid cut the sides instead of the top? Because 3:4 is narrower than the shapes most people post. The grid cell is proportionally taller and thinner than a 4:5 post or a square one, so fitting your image into it means removing width, not height. #### How do I stop the grid cropping my posts? Post at 3:4 and there is nothing to trim. If you want to post a different shape, set the thumbnail per post from the post’s ⋯ menu to choose which slice the grid shows. #### Does a border protect a photo from the grid crop? Yes, when the canvas is 3:4. The border absorbs the difference in shape, so the grid shows the photo complete instead of cutting into it. A border on a 4:5 or square canvas still loses a little to the grid, though it loses border rather than photo. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - what the feed accepts, which is a different question from what the profile grid displays. - [Adam Mosseri, 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/) - 3:4 support for feed photos, the shape the grid cell also uses. Meta has published no specification for the profile grid cell. Its shape and cropping behavior here are measured from the app rather than quoted from documentation, which is why this page states them as observed and dates when they were checked. ### Related - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - [Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html) - [What Instagram does to your photo on upload](https://sevenrats.com/does-instagram-compress-photos.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) --- ## How to post a full photo on Instagram without cropping it Source: https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **Instagram's feed accepts aspect ratios from 1.91:1 (widest) to 3:4 (tallest).** A photo outside that range gets cropped, and no setting turns that off. The fix is to stop trying to make the photo fit and make the *canvas* fit instead: put the whole photo on a 3:4, 4:5 or 1:1 canvas and fill the space left over with a border. Instagram can do a basic version of this itself - pinch out in the composer and it adds a border for you. You just don’t get to choose the color. ### What Instagram actually accepts The feed renders a fixed range of shapes. Anything inside the range posts whole; anything outside it is trimmed to the nearest shape Instagram can display. | Shape | Ratio | Pixels | Notes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Tallest accepted | 3:4 (0.75) | 1080 × 1440 | Native since 28 May 2025. The shape most phone cameras shoot by default. | | Portrait | 4:5 (0.80) | 1080 × 1350 | The long-standing safe default. | | Square | 1:1 | 1080 × 1080 | Loses the most width in the profile grid. | | Widest accepted | 1.91:1 | 1080 × 566 | Narrower than 16:9, so most landscape photos still fall outside. | Quick check: divide width by height. Between 0.75 and 1.91 posts uncropped. A 16:9 landscape shot is 1.78 and squeaks in; a 3:2 film frame is 1.5 and is fine; a 9:16 screenshot is 0.56 and is not. This is the single most common thing older guides get wrong. Before May 2025 the tallest accepted shape really was 4:5, and a lot of pages still say so. If a guide doesn’t mention 3:4, it predates the change, which Instagram head Adam Mosseri [announced on 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/). Worth knowing where that leaves the documentation: Instagram’s own [help center article on image resolution](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) still gives the range as 1.91:1 to 4:5 and has not been updated for 3:4. The behavior changed before the page describing it did, which is why so much of what is written about this disagrees with itself. ### The built-in fit button, and its one catch Instagram has its own version of this. In the composer, pinch outwards on the photo (or tap the expand arrows in the corner) and Instagram shrinks the whole frame to fit, filling the leftover space with a plain border. For a photo that is only slightly out of range, that is genuinely all you need, and it costs nothing. The catch is that the border is not yours. **Instagram picks it: white normally, black if the person looking at your post has dark mode turned on.** The same post shows up with a different border depending on who is scrolling, and you can’t preview which one they’ll get. You also can’t change the thickness, and you can’t choose which accepted shape it settles on. A border baked into the image before you upload is just part of the picture, so it looks the same to everyone. That is the entire difference, and for a lot of posts it doesn’t matter. It matters when the border is part of the look - a consistent grid, a film-scan white edge, a color pulled from the photo. ### Putting the whole photo on a canvas The technique is the same whichever tool you use: build a canvas at an accepted ratio, place the entire photo inside it, and let a border fill the rest. Nothing is cut off, because nothing needed to be. 1. **Work out the shape you have.** Width divided by height. That tells you how far outside the accepted range you are, and therefore how much border you are about to add. 2. **Pick the canvas.** 3:4 gives a tall photo the most room and fills the profile grid exactly. 4:5 is the safe middle. 1:1 is worth it only when the grid matters more than the feed. 3. **Place the photo, don’t crop it.** The photo keeps its own dimensions. The canvas grows around it. A wide photo on a tall canvas gets thick bands above and below; that is the trade you are making in exchange for the whole frame. 4. **Export at full resolution, then post normally.** Save to Photos and upload from Instagram as usual. Because the file is already an accepted shape, the composer has nothing to trim. **This is what 7rats does.** Pick a ratio, pick one of seven border colors, drag the thickness where you want it, export. It runs entirely on your iPhone or iPad, your photos are never uploaded anywhere, and it is free to use. [See how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). ### The profile grid crops separately Getting a photo through the feed uncropped does not mean it survives your profile grid. Those are two different crops, and the grid one catches people out. In January 2025 the grid changed from square thumbnails to **3:4** ones. Since 3:4 (0.75) is *narrower* than 4:5 (0.80) and much narrower than 1:1, the grid takes width off the sides - not height off the top and bottom. Several popular guides state this backwards. | You post | Grid shows | What is lost | | --- | --- | --- | | 3:4 | All of it | Nothing | | 4:5 | Center 3:4 | A thin strip off each side | | 1:1 | Center 3:4 | Roughly a quarter of the width | If the grid is what you care about, post 3:4. You can also set a custom thumbnail per post from the post’s ⋯ menu, which sidesteps the crop for individual images. ### What happens to quality on upload Worth being straight about this, because a lot of app marketing (including, historically, ours) blurs it. **You cannot post at full resolution.** Instagram serves feed images at up to 1080 pixels wide and re-encodes everything as JPEG. It also strips EXIF metadata, so camera settings, timestamps and GPS do not survive. What you control is what goes in. Exporting at your photo’s native resolution means Instagram’s downscale starts from more detail, which holds up better than uploading something already reduced. If an export looks soft in the feed but sharp in Photos, the app did its job and the compression is Instagram’s. ### Common questions #### What aspect ratios does Instagram accept without cropping? From 1.91:1 at the widest to 3:4 at the tallest. Square (1:1) and portrait (4:5) sit inside that range. Instagram added native 3:4 support on 28 May 2025, so guides written before then that say 4:5 is the tallest option are out of date. #### Why does Instagram crop my photos? Because the feed only renders a fixed range of shapes. A photo taller than 3:4 or wider than 1.91:1 does not fit any of them, so Instagram trims it to the nearest shape it can display. A 9:16 screenshot and a 16:9 landscape photo are both outside the range, which is why they lose the most. #### Does Instagram's own fit button work? Yes, for the simple case. Pinching out in the composer fits the whole frame and fills the remaining space with a border. The catch is that you do not choose the border: it is white, or black if the viewer has dark mode enabled, so the same post looks different to different people. A border baked into the image before uploading always looks the same. #### Does adding a border reduce photo quality? Adding the border does not. Instagram's upload does. Instagram serves feed images at up to 1080 pixels wide and re-encodes everything as JPEG, so a large export is downscaled and recompressed no matter how it was made. Exporting at full resolution still helps, because the downscale starts from more detail. #### Will my post still get cropped in the profile grid? Possibly. The profile grid moved from square to 3:4 in January 2025, and 3:4 is narrower than 4:5 or 1:1. That means the grid crops the sides, not the top and bottom. A 3:4 post fills the grid exactly; a 4:5 post loses a little width; a square post loses a lot. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - the 1080-pixel width and the documented accepted range. Still states 4:5 as the tallest shape. - [Adam Mosseri, 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/) - the announcement that Instagram accepts 3:4: “the format that almost every phone camera defaults to.” ### Related - [Why the profile grid crops the sides, not the top](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html) - [What Instagram does to your photo on upload](https://sevenrats.com/does-instagram-compress-photos.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) - [Which ratio should I use?](https://sevenrats.com/support.html#which-ratio) --- ## How to post a panorama on Instagram without losing the frame Source: https://sevenrats.com/post-panorama-instagram.html Checked against Instagram’s current behavior in September 2026 **A panorama can never post at its own shape.** Instagram’s widest accepted ratio is 1.91:1, which is narrower than 16:9 - so a 2:1 or 3:1 panorama is not a borderline case, it is far outside the range. Left alone, Instagram keeps a center slice and discards the rest, which is usually the entire reason you shot a panorama. Two approaches actually work: split it across a carousel, or put the whole frame on an accepted canvas with a border above and below. They suit different photos. ### Why panoramas lose the most Every photo outside the accepted range loses something. Panoramas lose more than anything else, and the arithmetic is unforgiving. | Your panorama | Decimal | Kept at 1.91:1 | Kept in the 3:4 grid | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 16:9 widescreen | 1.78 | 100% | about 42% | | 2:1 | 2.00 | about 96% | about 38% | | 65mm film, 2.7:1 | 2.70 | about 71% | about 28% | | 3:1 | 3.00 | about 64% | 25% | | Stitched sweep, 6:1 | 6.00 | about 32% | about 13% | The last column is the one that hurts. Even a panorama that squeaks through the feed is reduced to a narrow vertical slice on your profile - a sliver of sky and ground with the sweep gone. ### The carousel split Cut the panorama into equal-width sections and post them as a carousel in order. Swiping reads left to right across the scene, which mimics panning. 1. **Decide the number of slices.** Each slice should be an accepted ratio - square is usual. A 3:1 panorama gives three clean squares; a 2:1 gives two. 2. **Cut on the exact boundaries.** Slices must be identical widths and align perfectly, or the seam shows as a jump when swiping. 3. **Upload in order, in one post.** Instagram preserves carousel order. Check the sequence before posting; reordering afterwards is not possible. **What you gain:** each slice fills the screen, so detail survives far better than any bordered version. **What you give up:** nobody ever sees the panorama whole, the seams are visible while swiping, and it only works at all if the viewer swipes. Most do not. ### The bordered canvas Put the entire panorama on a canvas that is already an accepted shape and let a border fill the bands above and below. The post is a single image, seen complete, by everyone. This is the approach that survives the profile grid intact, which the carousel does not - a carousel’s grid thumbnail is just its first slice, cropped to 3:4 like anything else. **This is what 7rats does.** Pick a ratio, pick one of seven border colors, set the margin, export at the photo’s native resolution. It runs entirely on your iPhone or iPad, your photos are never uploaded anywhere, and it is free to use. [See how it works](https://sevenrats.com/). ### Choosing between them Neither is correct in general. The question is what the photo is for. | | Carousel split | Bordered canvas | | --- | --- | --- | | Detail on screen | High - each slice fills the width | Lower - the photo is a band in the middle | | Seen whole | Never | Always, immediately | | Needs a swipe | Yes | No | | Profile grid | First slice, cropped | Whole frame, if the canvas is 3:4 | | Effort per post | Minutes, precise cutting | Seconds | Rule of thumb: if the panorama works because of *detail* - a city skyline, a dense landscape someone will study - split it. If it works because of *sweep* - a horizon, a sense of scale, a composition read at a glance - border it. ### Which canvas for a very wide frame Counter-intuitively, **square is usually right for the widest panoramas.** For a given panorama, a square canvas adds the least border, so the photo stays as large as it can be. A 3:4 canvas makes the post taller and therefore bigger in the feed, but the extra height is all border - the panorama itself does not grow. With a 3:1 panorama on a 3:4 canvas, the photo occupies roughly a quarter of the post’s height and the rest is color. Sometimes that framing is exactly the look you want. Often it is just a small photo. The exception is when the profile grid matters more than the feed. A 3:4 canvas is the only one that reaches the grid uncut, so a consistent 3:4 border across a body of panorama work gives you a grid that reads as intentional. ### Common questions #### Can you post a full panorama on Instagram? Not at its own shape. The feed stops at 1.91:1 and a panorama is wider, so it gets cropped. The two ways to keep the whole frame are splitting it across a carousel, or placing it on an accepted canvas with a border above and below. #### What is the widest photo Instagram accepts? 1.91:1. That is narrower than 16:9, so even ordinary widescreen landscape photos fall outside it, let alone a panorama. #### Carousel or border - which is better? The carousel shows more detail because each slice fills the screen, but it needs a swipe and the panorama is never seen whole. A bordered post is seen complete by everyone at a glance, at the cost of the photo being smaller on screen. #### Which canvas shape for a very wide panorama? Square, usually. For a given width it adds the least border, keeping the panorama as large as possible. A taller canvas makes the post occupy more feed but shrinks the photo inside it - unless the profile grid matters to you, in which case 3:4 is the only canvas that reaches it uncut. ### Sources - [Instagram Help Center: image resolution of photos you share](https://help.instagram.com/1631821640426723) - the 1.91:1 ceiling that every panorama falls outside of, and what happens to a ratio the feed does not accept. - [Adam Mosseri, 28 May 2025](https://www.threads.com/@mosseri/post/DKOIbJkRNIb/) - 3:4 as an accepted canvas shape, which is the one that reaches the profile grid uncut. ### Related - [How to post a full photo without cropping it](https://sevenrats.com/post-full-photo-instagram-without-cropping.html) - [Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-aspect-ratio-guide.html) - [Why the profile grid crops the sides](https://sevenrats.com/instagram-grid-crop.html) - [All guides](https://sevenrats.com/guides.html) --- ## Support Source: https://sevenrats.com/support.html Everything about 7rats in one place. If your question isn't answered here, write to us and a person will read it - we usually reply within two business days. **Need a human?** Email [contact@exovoid.eu](mailto:contact@exovoid.eu) or use the [contact form](https://sevenrats.com/#contact). If you're reporting a bug, tell us your device model and software version - it saves a round trip. ### Using the app #### How do I export an uncropped photo for Instagram? Pick your photo, choose a ratio (4:5, 1:1 or 3:4), choose a border color and thickness, then tap export. 7rats saves the result to Photos at full resolution and opens the share sheet, where you can hand it straight to Instagram. #### Which ratio should I use? - **4:5** - the tallest the feed shows without trimming. Best use of screen space for portrait shots. - **1:1** - square. Safest for grids, since the profile grid crops to a square anyway. - **3:4** - a gentler portrait shape when 4:5 leaves too much border. #### The exported photo looks softer than the original 7rats exports at your photo's native resolution, so this is almost always Instagram's own re-compression on upload rather than the export. Check the exported file in Photos first: if it is sharp there, the app has done its job. #### 7rats can't see my photos Open *Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos*, find 7rats and choose *Full Access* or *Limited Access*. With Limited Access, use *Edit Selected Photos* to add the pictures you want to work on. ### Purchases #### I paid to remove ads but the banner is back Open 7rats, go to the ad-free option and tap *Restore purchases*. Make sure you're signed in with the same Apple Account that made the purchase. Restoring is free and works on any of your devices. #### Refunds In-app purchases are handled by Apple, so refunds go through them. Visit [reportaproblem.apple.com](https://reportaproblem.apple.com/), sign in, and pick the purchase. If Apple turns you down and you think that's wrong, write to us and we'll see what we can do. ### Privacy and data Your photos are processed entirely on your device and are never uploaded - not to us, not to anyone. There are no accounts. The full detail is in our [Privacy Policy](https://sevenrats.com/privacy.html). ### Requirements 7rats works with iPhone and iPad. The App Store listing shows the current minimum software version. ### Still stuck? Write to [contact@exovoid.eu](mailto:contact@exovoid.eu), or use the [contact form on the home page](https://sevenrats.com/#contact). --- ## Privacy Policy Source: https://sevenrats.com/privacy.html Last updated: 7 September 2026 This policy covers two things: the **7rats app**, and the **sevenrats.com website**. The short version is that your photos never leave your device, the website counts visits with Google Analytics only if you accept the cookie banner, and the only personal data you give us directly is what you choose to type into the contact form. ### Who is responsible for your data The data controller is **Exovoid Ltd.**, bul. Cherni Vrah 47A, 1404 Sofia, Bulgaria (company registration number **BG208120758**), which publishes 7rats. For any privacy question, or to exercise the rights listed below, write to [contact@exovoid.eu](mailto:contact@exovoid.eu). ### The 7rats app #### Your photos **Photos are processed entirely on your device.** When you pick a photo, 7rats reads it, builds the canvas and border around it, and writes the result back to Photos or hands it to the share sheet. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is sent to us, and we never see your images, their metadata or their location data. 7rats asks for access to your photo library only so it can open the photo you select and save the exported one. You can grant limited access to individual photos instead of the whole library, and the app works the same way. You can change or revoke this at any time in *Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos*. #### No accounts, no tracking There is no sign-up and no login. We do not build a profile of you, we do not use the Advertising Identifier for tracking across other companies' apps or websites, and we do not sell or share personal data. #### Advertising in the free version The free version of the app shows a single banner ad, served by **Google AdMob** (Google Ireland Ltd.). To fill that banner, AdMob receives technical data from your device such as its IP address, device model, operating system version and coarse region. This is what makes the free version possible, and it is the only network request the app makes. - The banner appears only inside the app. It is never added to the image you export. - Apps must ask before tracking you across other companies' apps and websites. If you are shown that prompt and decline, 7rats and its ad provider serve you non-personalized ads instead. - The one-time in-app purchase removes the banner. Once it is removed, the app makes no network requests at all. Legal basis: your consent for personalized advertising where consent is required (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), and our legitimate interest in funding a free app through non-personalized advertising otherwise (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). See [how Google uses data from apps that use its services](https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites). #### Purchases The ad-free unlock is processed by **Apple** through the App Store. We never see your payment details. Apple tells the app only whether the purchase exists. Apple's handling of your data is governed by the [Apple Privacy Policy](https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/). Apple may also give us aggregate, anonymised App Store statistics such as download and crash counts. These cannot identify you. ### The sevenrats.com website #### What we collect, and why | Data | Why | Legal basis | | --- | --- | --- | | Name, email address and message (all required) | To read your message and reply to it, and to send you a confirmation that we received it. | Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR - steps taken at your request before entering into a contract, or Art. 6(1)(f) - our legitimate interest in answering enquiries. | | Analytics data: a random visitor and session ID kept in cookies, the pages you open and when, the site or search that sent you, your device type, browser, screen size and language, and an approximate city-level location derived from your IP address | To see how many people visit the site and which pages are worth keeping, so we can improve them. | Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and Art. 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive - your consent, given by pressing Accept on the cookie banner and withdrawable at any time. | | Your IP address, transiently | To rate-limit the contact form and to run the reCAPTCHA spam check. It is held in memory only for as long as the rate-limit window and is never written to disk. | Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR - our legitimate interest in keeping the form free of abuse. | The website has no database. The form does not store what you typed anywhere on our servers; it is turned into an email and sent on. #### Analytics **We use Google Analytics 4** (Google Ireland Ltd.) to count visits to sevenrats.com, and only if you press Accept on the cookie banner. Nothing is loaded, and no cookie is set, before you choose. Refusing costs you nothing: the site behaves identically either way. If you accept, your browser loads a script from `googletagmanager.com` and sends Google the data listed in the table above. Google processes it for us as our processor, under its [data processing terms](https://business.safety.google/adsprocessorterms/). If you refuse, that request is never made. - **We do not see your IP address.** Google uses it to work out an approximate city-level location and then discards it; it is not logged or stored in our reports, and traffic from the EU is collected on Google's European servers. - **No advertising features.** Google Signals and ad personalisation are switched off on our property, so what we measure is not used to build advertising audiences or to follow you around other websites. - **We only ever look at totals.** We have no interest in individual visitors, and we do not try to identify anyone or combine analytics data with the emails you send us. #### Cookies We set no cookies of our own. The only cookies this site can place come from Google Analytics, they are first-party cookies on `sevenrats.com`, they hold random numbers rather than anything about you, and they are placed only after you accept. | Cookie | Purpose | Expires | Set when | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `_ga` | Google Analytics - distinguishes one visitor from another so visit counts are not double-counted. | 2 years | Only after you accept | | `_ga_XRZ0H0W7XX` | Google Analytics - keeps track of the current session. | 2 years | Only after you accept | | `7rats-consent` | Remembers your answer to the cookie banner so we stop asking. Stored in your browser's local storage, not sent to us or anyone else. Strictly necessary, so it needs no consent. | Until you clear it | When you answer the banner | **Changing your mind.** Press here or in the footer of any page to withdraw or give consent at any time. Withdrawing takes one click, deletes the Google Analytics cookies from your browser, and stops any further collection. You can also install Google's [Analytics opt-out browser add-on](https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout), or use any browser or extension that blocks trackers. Fonts are served from our own server rather than a font CDN, so a page you have not consented on contacts nobody but us. Google reCAPTCHA, described next, additionally sets a `_GRECAPTCHA` cookie on Google's own domain - but only if you start writing to us. #### reCAPTCHA on the contact form The contact form is protected by **Google reCAPTCHA v3** (Google Ireland Ltd.), which scores how likely a submission is to be automated. Google receives your IP address, browser and device information, and how you interacted with the page. This is strictly for spam and abuse prevention; the score is used once and not stored. **reCAPTCHA is not loaded when the page opens.** It is fetched only when you first click into or tap the contact form, so a visitor who reads the site without writing to us never contacts Google at all. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR - our legitimate interest in preventing spam and abuse. Google's [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. If you would rather not use reCAPTCHA, email us directly at [contact@exovoid.eu](mailto:contact@exovoid.eu) instead. #### Server logs Our hosting provider keeps standard web server logs (IP address, time, requested URL, user agent) for security and troubleshooting. These are kept for a short period and are not combined with anything else or used to identify you. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. ### Who else sees your data - **Hostinger** - our hosting and email provider. Your message is delivered to our mailbox through Hostinger's mail service, and both the message to us and the confirmation to you are stored in that mailbox. Hostinger acts as our processor. - **Google Ireland Ltd.** - provides Analytics and reCAPTCHA on the website, and AdMob in the free version of the app. - **Apple** - distributes the app and processes in-app purchases. We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with anyone else. Where a provider transfers data outside the EU/EEA, that transfer relies on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and, for transfers to the United States, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. ### How long we keep it Your message lives only in our email mailbox. We keep support emails for **24 months** from our last exchange with you, then delete them. IP addresses used for rate limiting are held in memory for 15 minutes and then discarded. Analytics events are deleted by Google after **14 months**, the longest retention Google Analytics allows. The aggregate counts we look at (visits per page, per month) are not personal data and stay in our reports. ### Children 7rats is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal data, write to us and we will delete it. ### Your rights Under the GDPR you can ask us to: - give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you (access); - correct anything inaccurate (rectification); - delete it (erasure); - restrict how we use it, or object to us using it under legitimate interest; - provide it in a portable, machine-readable format. Write to [contact@exovoid.eu](mailto:contact@exovoid.eu) and we will respond within one month. There is no charge. In practice, the only personal data we are likely to hold about you is an email exchange. If you think we have handled your data badly, you can complain to the Bulgarian supervisory authority: the **Commission for Personal Data Protection** (Комисия за защита на личните данни), 2 Prof. Tsvetan Lazarov Blvd., 1592 Sofia, [cpdp.bg](https://www.cpdp.bg/). You may also complain to the authority in your own EU country. ### Do you have to give us this data? No. It is not a statutory or contractual requirement, and the app itself asks for nothing. We do need a name, an email address and a message to be able to reply, so without them the contact form cannot be submitted. ### Trademarks Apple, the Apple logo, App Store, iPhone, and iPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. ### Changes If we change how we handle your data, we will update this page and the date at the top. Material changes affecting the app will also be noted in the App Store release notes.