What Size Is a Spotify Canvas?

The four requirements, in full

Spotify's own Canvas guidelines list four things and nothing else. Your Canvas needs to be 3 to 8 seconds long, in a vertical 9:16 ratio, between 720px and 1080px tall, and an MP4 or JPG file.

That really is the complete spec. There is no published frame rate, no published bitrate, no published codec beyond the container, and no statement about audio.

In practice the two resolutions people ship are 720x1280 and 1080x1920. Spotify's own wording about height is ambiguous, since a 9:16 clip that is 1080 pixels wide is 1920 pixels tall, so treat 1080x1920 as the safe upper choice and 720x1280 as the safe lower one.

There is no published file size limit

You will find a great many pages confidently stating that a Canvas cannot exceed 8MB. None of them cite Spotify, because Spotify does not say it. The number appears to have been copied between guides until it became folklore.

It is worth being precise about how far this goes. In a Spotify community thread, someone reported a 17.4MB vertical clip failing to upload and asked what the size limit was. A Spotify moderator replied by pointing back to the same four-bullet help article rather than giving a number.

So: keep your file sensible, because a smaller file uploads more reliably and Spotify re-encodes it anyway. But do not treat any specific megabyte figure as a rule handed down by Spotify, and be sceptical of any service that quotes you one as though it were.

The three loop styles Spotify names

Spotify's guidance describes three approaches. A continuous loop runs seamlessly with no visible restart. A hard cut has clear edit points, which Spotify says can be artfully disguised. A rebound plays your clip forward and then reverses it, which is the easy way to get something that does not jump.

This is more permissive than Apple Music, which asks for a continuous loop with no noticeable transition and separately rejects artwork containing multiple edits. If you intend to produce for both platforms, build to Apple's stricter rule and Spotify will be satisfied automatically.

What to keep clear of the edges

The Spotify player interface sits over the Canvas: track name, artist, controls and the progress bar occupy the lower part of the screen, and there is chrome at the top.

Spotify does not publish a safe zone measurement, so anyone quoting you an exact pixel inset is guessing. The practical rule is simply to keep anything that must be legible, especially your title and artist name, well away from the top and bottom of the frame and toward the middle.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the maximum file size for a Spotify Canvas?

Spotify does not publish one. Its guidelines list only duration, aspect ratio, height and file type. The widely repeated 8MB figure does not appear in any Spotify documentation. Keep the file modest for upload reliability, but no specific number is a Spotify rule.

Can a Spotify Canvas have sound?

Canvas always plays silently, because your track is the audio. Spotify's published requirements do not actually address audio tracks at all, so the safe approach is to export without one rather than rely on Spotify stripping it.

Can I use a still image as a Canvas?

Yes. Spotify's spec accepts a JPG as well as an MP4. A still will not move, so it gives up most of the benefit, but it is technically within spec.

Is 1080x1920 or 720x1280 better?

1080x1920 is the higher quality option and sits at the top of Spotify's stated height range. 720x1280 produces a smaller file. Spotify re-encodes either one, so start from the highest quality source you have rather than upscaling a small clip.

How long can a Spotify Canvas be?

3 to 8 seconds. Note that Spotify's own help page introduces Canvas as an 8 second loop in its opening line while the requirement bullet says 3 to 8 seconds, so anything in that range is acceptable.