Telegram Profile & Banner Size Tool

Telegram keeps its image system simple: there is one square photo for your profile, channel, or group, and Telegram masks it into a circle everywhere it appears. This tool gives you the exact upload resolution and the circular safe area so your avatar stays sharp and uncropped from the tiny chat-list dot to the full-screen view.

How it works

Telegram avatars are square uploads displayed through a circular mask. The correct upload resolution is the largest size Telegram will display, and the safe area is the circle inscribed in that square:

upload size  = 512×512 px minimum (1024×1024 recommended)
displayed    = circular crop of the square
safe circle  = diameter equals the square's width
safe margin  = keep subject inside central ~90% to avoid edge clipping

Because the mask is a circle, the four corners of your square are always hidden. Anything outside the inscribed circle — about 21 percent of the square’s area in the corners — will not be shown.

Surface-by-surface breakdown

Telegram has several contexts where your image appears at different displayed sizes:

All of these draw from the same single square upload, scaled down as needed. That is why uploading at 1024×1024 matters: Telegram picks the right size for each context, and a high-resolution source avoids any upscaling blur.

Designing your avatar: practical guidance

For personal profile photos keep your face roughly centred and leave a clear margin from the circle edge. Telegram crops the full-screen view to a square but shows a circle in lists — test how it looks at both scales. A plain or slightly blurred background makes the subject pop in the tiny chat-list dot.

For channel and group logos think of the circle as your bounding shape from the start. A mark or wordmark that extends close to the corners will be clipped. A good rule: keep all meaningful content inside a circle whose diameter is 85% of the square’s width, giving you a safe margin on all sides.

Exporting: PNG preserves sharp edges on logos and illustrations; JPG is smaller and better for photographs. Keep the file under about 5 MB. Telegram re-encodes what you upload, so there is no point in extremely large files — a well-prepared 1024×1024 JPG at 80% quality gives excellent results.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Uploading a rectangular (non-square) image: Telegram crops it to a square before masking, often cutting off part of your subject.
• Putting text near the edges: corner text is always hidden by the circular mask.
• Uploading below 512×512: Telegram upscales it, and the result looks noticeably soft on retina screens and in the full-screen view.
• Assuming there is a banner or cover image: Telegram has no wide banner. The circle avatar is the only branded image across all surfaces.