A carousel is one post with up to 20 photos and videos. These are its terms, in the order you meet them while posting one, each with a one-line example.
Instagram's help page puts it in one sentence: you can share a post with up to 20 photos and videos as a single post, also known as a carousel. Everything else about carousels follows from that: what you can set once for the whole post, what you can set per photo, and what stays fixed after you share. The terms below run in the order you meet them while making one. This guide is part of the Posts and reels section of the blog.
Starting a carousel
Building it
Most of a carousel's settings apply to every slide at once.
Captions, location and tags
How a carousel is seen
In the feed, the dots tell people there is more to swipe.
A shared carousel can be rearranged and trimmed, not extended.
Instagram's help page lists what can change after sharing: the order, which photos and videos stay, the caption or captions, the location, and the accounts tagged. The route is the three-dot menu on the post, then Edit, then a long press to reorder, then Done.
You can change
The order of photos and videos
Remove a photo or video
Caption or captions
Location and tags
You cannot change
Add new photos or videos
Give one slide its own orientation
A labelled carousel
9:41
lena.hoff
Post · 1 of 6
First photo, the cover1
Carousel icon, top right on the profile grid2
Row of dots under the photo3
Likes and comments for the whole post4
One caption, or one per photo5
1
Cover
The first photo or video, shown in the feed and on the profile grid.
2
Carousel icon
Marks the post on the profile grid as more than one item.
3
Dots
One dot per item; the filled dot is the one on screen.
4
Likes and comments
Counted for the whole post.
5
Captions
One for the post, or one for each item.
Drawn example, not a screenshot.
Related terms from the same section: Recently Deleted on Instagram: The 30-Day Clock, How to Hide Likes on Instagram, Screen by Screen, and Instagram Reels Views: Views, Viewers and Watch Time.
Stories are the other way to share several photos at once; they disappear after 24 hours, and the guide on whether Instagram notifies when you screenshot a story covers what their owners can see. A carousel stays on the profile until you delete it.
Up to 20 photos and videos in one post, according to Instagram's help page on sharing several photos or videos.
02Can each slide in a carousel have a different shape?
No. The orientation you choose, square, portrait or landscape, applies to every photo and video in the post.
03Can I add a photo to a carousel after posting it?
No. Instagram's help page says you can reorder, remove, and edit captions, location and tags after sharing, but you cannot add new photos or videos.
04Do likes count for each slide or the whole carousel?
For the whole post. Likes and comments appear on the entire carousel, not on its individual photos and videos.
05Is a video in a carousel a reel?
No. Instagram's help page says videos in carousels are not considered reels and will not show up in the Reels tab.
06What size should carousel photos be?
Instagram keeps a photo at its original resolution when it is between 320 and 1080 pixels wide and its shape is between 1.91:1 and 3:4. A width of 1080 pixels with a height between 566 and 1440 pixels fits that range.
