Export at 1080 × 1920 pixels, 9:16, MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio at 30 frames a second, and keep it under 10 minutes.
That one line is most of what anyone needs. The rest of this page is the numbers around it: how long a clip can be, how big the file can be, where TikTok’s own buttons sit on top of your video, what to do about compression, and what changes when the clip is an ad.
TikTok video size at a glance
| What | The number |
|---|---|
| Aspect ratio | 9:16 vertical — 1:1 and 16:9 also post, letterboxed |
| Resolution to export | 1080 × 1920 pixels |
| Resolution TikTok accepts | 360 px minimum, 4096 px maximum, on both sides |
| Frame rate | 30 fps recommended; 23 to 60 accepted |
| Bitrate | 6 to 8 Mbps for 1080p at 30 fps |
| Length, recorded in the app | up to 10 minutes |
| Length, uploaded in the app | up to 60 minutes |
| Length, scheduled through another tool | up to 10 minutes |
| File size, in the TikTok app | about 72 MB on Android, 288 MB on iOS |
| File size, web uploader | up to 4 GB |
| Containers | MP4 (recommended), MOV, WebM |
| Codecs | H.264 (recommended), H.265, VP8, VP9; AAC audio |
| Caption | up to 2,200 characters |
| Videos per post | 1 |
Two rows are worth a second look. The resolution TikTok accepts is a range wide enough that a 480 × 854 clip goes straight through, which makes 1080 × 1920 a recommendation rather than a gate — a good recommendation, because it fills a phone screen without upscaling anything. And the file-size row depends entirely on how you upload, which is why every guide you read quotes a different maximum.
TikTok video dimensions and aspect ratio
1080 × 1920 is the shape that fills the screen
A TikTok video is 1080 pixels wide and 1920 tall, a 9:16 ratio — nine units across for every sixteen down. A phone held upright is close enough to 9:16 that a clip in this shape covers the screen edge to edge, with no bars and nothing cropped.
Portrait, square and landscape
Other shapes still post; they just get less of the screen. A square clip sits in a band in the middle of the feed. A 16:9 clip becomes a letterboxed strip with black above and below, and viewers have to turn their phone or squint. Neither is refused, and neither is wrong when you meant it — a talking-head clip cut from a webinar is landscape and that is that. It is only wrong when you exported landscape by accident.
Is TikTok 9:16 or 4:5?
9:16 for video. The 4:5 figure belongs to photo posts and to Instagram, where 4:5 is the tallest a feed image can be. If an editor offers you 4:5 for a TikTok video, it is being careful about a different network’s limit.
Is TikTok 1920 × 1080?
No — and the order of those numbers is the whole answer. 1920 × 1080 is 1080p landscape, the shape of a television. TikTok is 1080 × 1920, the same pixels rotated. Export “1080p” from a desktop editor without changing the canvas and you get 1920 × 1080, which TikTok will letterbox.
Keep your text out of TikTok’s interface
TikTok draws its own furniture over every clip: the caption, your username and the sound name along the bottom, the like, comment, share and bookmark buttons stacked down the right side.
Keep anything that has to be read out of the top 10% and the bottom 15% of the frame, and clear of the right edge. Titles, prices, offers and calls to action belong in the middle band. Your export will look fine either way — the only real check is watching it back on a phone.
Resolution, frame rate and bitrate
Export at 1080 × 1920 and 30 frames a second. TikTok accepts anything from 360 px to 4096 px on a side and frame rates from 23 to 60, so there is room either way, but 1080p30 is what phones shoot, what editors default to and what the feed is watched at.
Two edges catch people out. A 120-fps slow-motion clip straight off a phone is above the ceiling, and a screen recording exported at 15 fps is below the floor — neither is a shape problem that cropping will fix. Use 60 fps only when the motion needs it: sport, dance, fast hands.
For bitrate, 6 to 8 Mbps for 1080p at 30 fps gives the encoder enough to work with without producing a file your app refuses. Higher is not better, because TikTok re-encodes everything anyway.
Does TikTok support 4K?
You can upload it — 2160 × 3840 is inside the accepted range — but TikTok delivers 1080p, so a 4K master is downscaled on the way in. All you buy is upload time and a file that may be too large for the app. Master in 4K if you like, then export the version you post at 1080 × 1920.
TikTok video length
Recorded in the app: 10 minutes. Uploaded in the app: 60
TikTok’s help centre is unambiguous about the two routes:
Videos you record in TikTok can be up to 10 minutes long. Videos you upload in TikTok can be up to 60 minutes long.
A chosen sound sets the length
One more line from the same page:
If you select a sound before you record or upload your video, the video length will be determined by the sound length.
Pick a 15-second trending sound first and your 45-second clip becomes a 15-second clip. Choose the sound after the edit unless you want it to do the cutting for you.
Scheduled from another tool: 10 minutes
Post through a scheduler rather than the TikTok app and the ceiling is 10 minutes, not 60 — that is the limit TikTok gives the tools that publish on your behalf. Some accounts are capped lower still, at 3 minutes, until TikTok lifts them.
Ten minutes is far more than a business post needs, so in practice this only matters for long-form: a full webinar or a podcast episode has to be uploaded in the app by hand. Instagram splits the same way, with a shorter ceiling for scheduled Reels than for the app, which we took apart for Reels.
How long should a TikTok actually be?
Aim for 15 to 30 seconds for most business posts. Long enough to make one point with a face and a voice, short enough that people watch to the end — and watch-through is what the feed rewards. Go longer when the content earns it: a walkthrough, a before-and-after, a real explanation. Then let your own analytics settle the argument, because the right answer differs by account.
File format and file size
TikTok accepts MP4, MOV and WebM containers, with H.264, H.265, VP8 or VP9 video and AAC audio. MP4 wrapping H.264 is the safe pick everywhere: it is what phones export, what editors offer by default and what every scheduling tool accepts.
MOV carries one caveat. It is a wrapper, and a ProRes MOV out of Final Cut is enormous and not H.264 — if something downstream chokes on your file, re-export as MP4 before you go looking for a bug. WebM is the opposite problem: TikTok takes it, and most tools around TikTok do not.
How much the file can weigh depends on the route:
- In the TikTok app — about 72 MB on Android and 288 MB on iOS.
- The web uploader at tiktok.com — up to 4 GB, which is what you want for anything long.
- Through a scheduler — whatever that tool allows, which is usually the lowest of the three and rarely printed on the pricing page. Worth asking before you pay for one.
- As an ad — 500 MB, in the ad specs below.
A clean 1080 × 1920 clip at 30 fps and 6 to 8 Mbps comes out at roughly 45 to 60 MB a minute, which is inside every one of those limits for the length of post most businesses make.
Why TikTok videos look blurry, and what helps
TikTok re-encodes every upload to keep the feed fast, and re-encoding costs detail. Most of the blur people blame on TikTok arrives before TikTok: an already-compressed file, a clip upscaled from something smaller, or a video re-saved twice through different apps.
What actually helps:
- Export once, at 1080 × 1920, H.264, 30 fps, 6 to 8 Mbps. Every extra re-save is another generation of loss.
- Never upscale. A 720p clip stretched to 1080 × 1920 looks worse than the 720p original.
- Turn on high-quality uploads on the post screen in the app, and turn off Data Saver.
- Upload on a decent connection. A stalled upload is where quality quietly goes.
- Keep motion sane. Fast movement and confetti transitions are the hardest things for any encoder; they are where you see banding first.
The other TikTok sizes people ask for
Profile picture
A square, cropped to a circle everywhere in the app. 200 × 200 pixels is the minimum; 400 × 400 or larger looks sharper, JPG or PNG. Keep the subject centred — the corners are always cut off, including in a comment avatar the size of a fingernail.
The cover frame
The cover is the same 1080 × 1920 shape as the video, because it is the video: you scrub to the frame you want when you post. There is no separate image to design, so plan for it in the edit — one clean frame with a readable face or product, and no motion blur.
Photo posts
TikTok photo posts are a different surface with different rules: 1080 × 1920, JPEG or WebP, up to 20 MB an image. JPEG is the safer pick, because other networks refuse WebP outright. Most scheduling tools cannot post them, so photo carousels are usually an in-app job.
TikTok ad video specs
Paid is a different rulebook. From TikTok Ads Manager’s own in-feed specifications:
| Spec | Auction in-feed ad |
|---|---|
| Aspect ratio and minimum resolution | 9:16 at 540 × 960 or larger; 16:9 at 960 × 540; 1:1 at 640 × 640 |
| File formats | .mp4, .mov, .mpeg, .3gp, .avi |
| Duration | up to 10 minutes |
| File size | 500 MB or less |
| Bitrate | 516 kbps or more |
| Captions | drawn in white, in a font you cannot change |
Two things to take from that table. The ad minimum of 540 × 960 is higher than the 360 px an organic post can get away with, so a clip that posts fine can still be rejected as an ad. And Spark Ads, which promote a post that already exists, inherit the organic clip and its caption, trimmed to four lines.
Scheduling TikTok posts
A scheduling tool sits between your export and TikTok, and it has its own limits on top of the platform’s: what formats it takes, how large a file it will carry, and how long a clip it is allowed to send. Worth checking all three before you plan a month of video around one.
Ours takes MP4 and MOV up to 64 MB, counts the caption against TikTok’s current 2,200 characters rather than the 300 half the internet still quotes, and shows you the post as it will look in the feed before it goes out. You can try the same two checks without an account: the TikTok caption preview and the post checker.
FAQ
What size should a TikTok video be? 1080 × 1920 pixels, a 9:16 vertical ratio, exported as MP4 with H.264 video at 30 frames a second.
Is TikTok 1920 × 1080? No. 1920 × 1080 is landscape; TikTok is 1080 × 1920, the same numbers the other way round.
How long can a TikTok video be? Up to 10 minutes recorded in the app, up to 60 minutes uploaded in the app, and up to 10 minutes when another tool posts it for you.
What is the maximum file size for TikTok? About 72 MB on Android and 288 MB on iOS in the app, and up to 4 GB through the web uploader at tiktok.com. In-feed ads are capped at 500 MB.
Does TikTok support 4K? You can upload it, but TikTok delivers 1080p, so a 4K file is downscaled on the way in. Export what you post at 1080 × 1920.
Why does my TikTok look blurry after posting? TikTok re-encodes every upload. Export once at 1080 × 1920 and 6 to 8 Mbps, never upscale, and turn on high-quality uploads with Data Saver off.
What is the TikTok caption limit? 2,200 characters, which you can check against a TikTok character counter before you post.
Before you export
Export 1080 × 1920, MP4 with H.264, 30 fps, 6 to 8 Mbps. Keep it under 10 minutes, and around 15 to 30 seconds unless the content earns more. Keep readable text out of the top 10% and bottom 15% of the frame and away from the right edge. Pick the sound after the edit, not before. And watch it back on a phone, which is the only screen that matters.
If you would rather not hold any of this in your head, PostPost.ai reads your brand from your own website and writes a month of on-brand posts, each already shaped for the network it goes to.