Louise Myers Visual Social Media

Rock your online presence with DIY graphics! Get Graphic Design & Social Media Marketing tips from an expert.

You are here: Home / Facebook Tips / The Secret to Getting a Large Facebook Link Thumbnail

The Secret to Getting a Large Facebook Link Thumbnail

by

Want a large Facebook Link Thumbnail? You need a BIG blog post image. Learn the minimum and optimal image sizes so you don't get a teensy link thumbnail.

Are you getting LARGE Facebook Link Thumbnail images?

Or are you stuck with tiny postage-stamp sized link previews?

Facebook upped the minimum size required to get those lovely large links! (in 2014)

And, Facebook suggests Fan Pages post more traditional link shares, promising them better visibility in Fans’ news feeds.

So, change the way you create blog images, AND share links on Facebook!

UPDATE: Facebook announced on June 28 2017, you will no longer be able to customize link metadata (i.e. headline, description, OR thumbnail image) in any link shares on Facebook. More info below the red and yellow image. ⬇️

This post was originally published in June 2014, and updated in February and July of 2017.

The Secret to Getting a Large Facebook Link Thumbnail

Facebook Link Thumbnail in the News Feed

On desktop, a large link preview will appear at 470 x 246 pixels. On mobile, the link preview will appear at 560×292 pixels.

If your blog post image isn’t big enough, then it will render as 154 x 154 or 90×90 px (the largest available size). BIG difference!

Facebook says:

Use images that are at least 1200 x 630 pixels for the best display on high resolution devices. At the minimum, you should use images that are 600 x 315 pixels to display link page posts with larger images. If your image is smaller than 600 x 315 px, it will still display in the link page post, but the size will be much smaller.

And that nice, big image (with its text box) links to the blog post when clicked, making it much easier for viewers to get to your blog posts.

February 2017: I’m getting complaints that the minimum size isn’t working for some people. This is still what Facebook is recommending! source If it’s not working for you, the solution is simple: make it bigger! Go with 1200 x 630.

The Secret to Getting a Large Facebook Link Thumbnail

Blog Image Sizes for Maximum Impact on Facebook

Facebook recommends 1200 x 630 pixel size for images. Your minimum size to ensure a large preview image is 600 x 315 pixels.

The common denominator with all these link thumbnail image sizes is an aspect ratio of 1.91 wide to 1 tall. So you could take the height of your image and multiply it by 1.91 to determine the proper width.

I now make all my blog header images to the width of my blog’s content column – which also happens to be the best width for a Pinterest pin! So my Facebook link shares are 736 x 386, which is a 1.91:1 aspect ratio. My pins are 736 x 1104, which is 2:3.

If you don’t want that horizontal image, use any shape image that’s at least 600 pixels wide to generate a large link preview. NOTE:  the top and bottom will be cut off in the link thumbnail. The image in the thumbnail below was a 624 pixel square on the blog post.

The Secret to Getting a Large Facebook Link Thumbnail

I recommend creating an image at least 600 x 315 pixels for each of your new blog posts going forward. If you have older posts that you (or readers) will be sharing on Facebook, and especially if you plan to run one as a Page Post Link Ad, you’d be smart to create a new, larger image for that blog post. Bigger images on blog posts look more up-to-date, too.

If you don’t want the image to be visible on your blog at all, and you’re comfortable with doing META coding, you can set the link preview image by following this tutorial. Don’t follow the size info there, as it’s outdated, but I believe the technique will still work with your new-size image. I haven’t tried it myself, and can’t help with META coding. But you could write me a tutorial if you like! 😉

Why Care About Facebook Link Thumbnails?

Standard link posts (that is, with the link preview generated by Facebook, as described above) have been getting better click-throughs than other ways to share links recommended in the past. With the large preview image, that can only get better – IF you take advantage of it!

If you don’t make your blog images at least 600 x 315 px, your link posts will be at a big disadvantage in the news feed. And if you plan to turn a link post into an ad, you will definitely want to ensure your image meets this minimum size. In fact, if you’re spending on an ad, make them the full 1200 x 630.

More Link Thumbnail Problems & Solutions (Updated)

If you’re posting your link right on Facebook – as opposed to sharing from your blog’s social sharing buttons – you can select which image to use as the link preview.

All images picked up by Facebook are pulled in and highlighted as tiny images at the bottom of the Publish box (note blue outline).

Deselect any you don’t want to show in your Facebook post by clicking on it. The blue outline will disappear.

You can delete all but one if you like – up to you.

If you leave several outlined, viewers will be able to scroll through them in a “carousel.”

Deselect any images you don't want to show in your Facebook post. You can delete all but one if you like – up to you.

Update July 2017: Facebook is removing the ability to customize link metadata (i.e. headline, description, OR image) in any link shares on Facebook.

You’ll no longer be able to edit the link thumbnail image, title, or description of a link preview  for Facebook group and personal profile posts as of July 17. 

The changes will apply in Facebook natively, as well as to Facebook’s API integration partners, including Hootsuite.

Business pages will be affected by this change at a later date.

Facebook explained why:

By removing the ability to customize link metadata (i.e. headline, description, image) from all link sharing entry points on Facebook, we are eliminating a channel that has been abused to post false news.

We’re working to find other solutions that allow publishers to share customized content on our platform, and we will have more to share in the coming weeks. As we make these changes, content creators maintain the ability to control how their links appear on Facebook using Open Graph meta tags. source

You’ll no longer be able to edit the link thumbnail image, title, or description of a Facebook link preview.

Be sure to set your Open Graph meta tags the way you want your link share to look before you publish your blog post!

To preview how your link will look when posted on Facebook, use the sharing debugger.

Note that you can remove the URL from the text when you’re happy with the link preview. It’s no longer needed.

Are you still missing a large link preview? Try this easy fix for missing link thumbnails.

Don’t like the cropping on an image that taller than 1.91:1? Crop an image in the right proportions and upload it via the prompt. Also useful if sharing a post that doesn’t have a large enough image – whether your own or someone else’s!

Posts with videos: if you’re sharing a post that includes an embedded video, Facebook will override the image you included and use the video thumbnail instead – giving you a small thumbnail. When clicked, it will play the video on Facebook and not send users to your site.

For more details on the new link previews and Page Post Link Ads, you may want to check out Facebook’s Ads and Sponsored Stories Guide. See page 17.

More Help With Your Facebook Page

Wondering how to promote your small business on Facebook? Learn how to set up your page for success, and how to make compelling graphics in minutes!

For general help with improving your Facebook Page, be sure to read my latest post:

If this post has helped you with Facebook Link Thumbnail image sizes, please share!

Comments

  2. Hi Louise!
    I discovered your site a week+ago as I’m refreshing my memory on the nuances of FB posting, having taken a (ahem!) 19 month sabbatical on both my personal and FB page!

    I appreciate all of the clear and helpful information you share!

    Thanks and I shall be sure to point more folks here!

    In Delight! In Gratitude!
    Frances

    Moxie Powered Delight Detective

  4. Hi!!! i just found your website! and i’m sure i can learn a lot from these tricks!!!

    Although the article is what i came looking for, it did not work for me. The image I used was 1000px wide, and i had even used one the same size that did show horizontal on another post. You think maybe the link title also influences how the image is displayed?

  5. Thanks so much. Fabulous timing. It’s been so troublesome trying to make sense of the FB nuances and your blog made it easy to fix. Good on you. Justine

  6. This didn’t work for me? The image I am using is 1201X936. Let me know if I am doing anything wrong.

  7. Hi, I’ve recently try to create a custom thumbnail on my youtube channel and I wanted to get the big image on facebook. I’ve followed a couple of tutorial like this one :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFUU2HAPYK0

    Saying I had to make my thumbnail 1200 x 628. It doesn’t seems to work on facebook. I still get a small image with the text to the right in stead of under. Any idea why ?!

    Thanks!

    • I believe he’s talking about sharing a video from your blog post, not directly from YouTube. Rather misleading.

      You need a third-party app for videos. Check this blog post. Readers have left other options in comments.

  8. how to post a link on facebook comment with large image thumbnail
    i ask large image in comments . not on page post

  9. Thanks for the tip! I have a question: my featured images are 656×300 and display in a big format, though they aren’t as sharp and clear as shown on the website (it doesn’t show pixelated or stretch, just not so sharp the letters, for instance) . As FB would take the resolution out of it. Any recommendation?

    • This is a tough one with website links. Your best bet is to upload a high-resolution (1200 pixels wide) PNG image directly to Facebook. That would suffer less compression. But you don’t want images that large on your web page as they would slow it down.

  10. Hi There!

    I found your pages and I’ve bookmarked them all as I find them extremely easy to read and informative!

    I am having issues still getting a large link image.

    I have debugged my link and resized my photo to 484×252 pixels, 600×315 pixels, AND 1200×630 pixels, NONE of which produce a large image link.

    What am I doing wrong? What do you suggest?

  11. Hello!

    Thank you for this post is was very very helpful!

    I have a question for you about photo sizes to use when having MailChimp post to Facebook for you when you send out an email….it always crops my ‘social post’ images funny for Facebook and I’d love to know what the optimal image dimensions are getting them to show best when using this feature in MailChimp.

    Thank you again!!
    Sarah

    • Hi Sarah,

      I don’t know anything bout MailChimp, and I don’t even use that feature in AWeber. Do you get good engagement with those posts?

      For an answer to your question, though, I would try MailChimp support. Best!

  12. It didn’t work for me. I’m not a blogger. I’m trying to post our logo or a graphic with a link to a site that is selling our Trivia Night. Please help, if you can.
    Thanks

    • Type in your text and link. If no image is pulled in, use the + sign below the link box to add your image.

      If it doesn’t fit the proportions of 600×315, it will be cropped. If it doesn’t meet the minimum size, you’ll get a tiny thumbnail.

  13. I think it depends on other factors. I shared a link on my page, and a buddy shared the same link on his. He got the large preview. I got the little one. He has tons of fb friends and a lot of interaction. I have limited. I think that’s also a factor. When I look at facebook debugger, it also shows the small image.

    Large (might not be viewable to all…)
    facebook.com/matt.barnick/posts/10155476458166808

    Small
    facebook.com/stephenegibson/posts/10154854560517048

    Same youtube link.
    youtube.com/watch?v=12sR4uM6w5Q

  14. Hi Louise, thank you for this helpful post!

    I’m trying to post a link to a third-party article and it’s not including our product image within the selectable options (this is a list of “best new products” and we’re number 8. It’s only pulling the first few images). I plugged the URL into the debugger link you shared, and it is showing our product photo as an OG image. However, it’s still not an option when publishing to our brand page. Since we do not manage this website, I cannot make any changes to the URL itself.

    When I try uploading a new image, even at 1200×630 pixels, it makes it a tiny cropped thumbnail on the left-hand side of the publishing link. Any ideas??

    Many thanks!

  15. Hi Louise!
    This blog post was fantastic! I blog on WordPress and was able to create large images and designate them for the FB share. I also had to use the Debugger tool, but now most of my posts show the large preview image on FB. Here’s my problem! Facebook is still showing the small, square, thumbnail on mobile. For example, my most recent post includes a designated FB image that is 1030 x 540. On Desktop, it shows the large preview, but on mobile is shows the ugly square. Any idea on why this would be happening? Thanks in advance for any help!! 🙂

  16. Hey Louise,

    I found your post really helpful.I have a motivational blog named “Think Inside-Out”. I was having this problem of not netting proper thumbnail on FB. This post helped me a lot. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

    -Aadesh

  17. Hello Louise,

    I’ve tried so many different advises on getting a full sized thumbnail when posting a link on facebook and uploading a custom image that I’m going crazy. It looks like there are no rules at all, sometimes it works, most of the time not. I tried to upload 1200 x 630, and some other sizes, saved in different qualities, but nothing works this time. Any thoughts?

    • Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that, Marko.

      Once in a while I need to pull in an image for a client’s posts, and I just use the ones from their blog, which are 800 x 533. I haven’t had problems, but I can say that Facebook isn’t known for its reliability! Sorry.

  18. 600 x 315 doesn’t work for me. On mobile, it still gets cropped into a little thumbnail. Mind updating your article with the actual minimum dimensions?

  19. Thank you so much i really need this information i have been google for find this kind of information but i saw your site on google and solved my problem thank you so much again

  20. Hello Louise,
    thank you very much for your post . Previously I struggling with the matter , how to post in facebook with larger , more appealing pictures . But now with the help of your advice , I can do it very easily . I am very much happy , now . In one word , I can describe your post is GORGEOUS . Just keep it up , so that many people can be benefited from it . My heartily greetings for you and thank you again . Have a nice day .

  21. I’m so glad I found this site! I was able to create a clickable image on Facebook posts to send people to my website. It looked good on my laptop, but it was reduced to a little thumbnail with a description to the right on my phone. I tried sorting through the updates and comments, but I’m not sure what size I should use. I was creating Facebook post graphics using Canva’s “Facebook Post” template, but that must be too large because it cut off parts of my graphic when I made it clickable. Can you tell me what size I should use to have a large, but not cutoff, image on both desktop and mobile? Thanks so much!

  22. Hi Louise,

    Do you also know how to make the thumbnails smaller?
    Whenever I share a post on Facebook, the thumbnails are so big for my liking. So I want it to be like the tiny postage-stamp size in the link preview.

    I have tried sharing it in different ways and using different sized photos to no avail.

    Thank you in advance for your help. (sorry my previous question was confusing)

    -Olivia

    • Hi Olivia,

      I honestly don’t think we have much control over how our posts look on Facebook. I haven’t tried to make a small thumbnail, but it sounds like you have, without success.

      It’s Facebook – it’s frustrating. 😉

  23. Hi Louise, I was wondering if you can help me as you are the Fb guru. When I post a link to my website on my Business FB page using Business Manager then try to replace the image, the TXT moves from the bottom to the right hand side and the image gets cropped into a Portrait. I have tried both recomended image sizes of 470×246 and 1200×628. I have also googled the heck out of it and cant seem to find a solution. Just wondering if you have any ideas I could try. Here is an image of the undesired result.

    • Hi Steve,

      Have you tried to see if it actually posts that way? I’ve noticed this too, but it always posts like a normal, landscape image for me.

  24. Facebook debugger is telling my my share image is larger than 8MB, when in actuality it is only 23K. It is defaulting to another undesired image on my site. Is there any interactive way, or FB phone number to call to get a real answer as to why this is happening, other than trying to guess what the problem is through trial and error? FB is pathetic.

    • There’s no phone support unless you’re a big advertiser. Depending on your website platform, you can look for a plugin that allows you to specify the FB image to be shared, or learn how to specify that with code.

  26. I have a problem, because 2 of my 3 pages suddenly cannot post large thumbnail meanwhile I didn’t do any change on it and in my another page the feature adding extra image is still working.

    Could you please help to give me the solution?
    Thanks in advance.

  27. If you want to make large facebook or twitter thumbnail , When clicked on the user direct to your site.
    From here : linkimage2url.com/ar/engpromopage.html .

  28. Thanks for the July update! You saved me a lot of time I would have wasted trying to figure out how to do something that can’t actually be done 🙂

    Facebook — so useful, so fickle!

  30. When I post a link on FB it shows me 2 thumbnails. I want to remove the post thumbnail and keep the new. Please tell me how can I fix it. Thanks

  31. Hi, I want to show a preview on my own website before feed is published to facebook. I see that facebook is cropping image in 476*248px and showing on page timeline but when I am resizing image in same dimensions both the images look different.

    My image is complete with new dimensions while Facebook’s image is not complete if original image size is not in ration e.g 1000*1000px.

    please help me

  32. Hi and thanks for that post,
    Facebook fetches a preview images, then I’m adding a picture and then, when i’m trying to de-select the preview it wouldn’t let me.
    I’ve tried switching between them (so that my image would be “1” and the preview “2”) but even after that, i can only deselect my image and not the preview.
    Any suggestions?

  33. Thanks for this. I was able to change my song artwork previews to full size on FB using 1200 x 630 pixels for my music download website. 600 x 315 doesn’t seem to work (any longer).

    Thanks again.

  34. Thanks for the detailed writeup, Louise! It’s such a shame that Facebook decided to disable customizing link previews. Have you seen sharekit.io, which brings back the ability to edit link previews? I’m using it for the pages that I manage and so far it’s working well.

  35. Thanks for this. I was able to change my song artwork previews to full size on FB using 1200 x 630 pixels for my music download website. 600 x 315 doesn’t seem to work (any longer).

  36. Oh, my goodness. I have been trying for 3 days to figure out how to make the thumbnail show up properly.

    Your blog answered my question, and I am now so HAPPY!!!!!!!

  37. When I post a link on FB it shows me 2 thumbnails. I want to remove the post thumbnail and keep the new…. how to fix it?

    • X it out.

      BTW for future reference I don’t allow use of a keyword instead of a real name. I remove the keywords as well as the URL on comments like this (or mark them as spam).

  38. Hello! I tried all the sizes in this post but none of them worked. I couldn’t make a big image, just the “little, totally square” one. What could be the problem? Thank you! 🙂