The best wallpaper sizes for every iPhone
The screen resolution of every iPhone from the iPhone 8 to the iPhone 17, the shape to aim for, and why a slightly bigger wallpaper is better.
A wallpaper looks its sharpest when it has at least as many pixels as your screen, in the same shape. Too few pixels and iOS has to stretch the picture; the wrong shape and it has to cut some of it off. Here is every iPhone still in common use, and what that means for the wallpaper you choose.
The short answer
Every iPhone with Face ID has a tall screen close to 9:19.5, and the largest of them is 1320 × 2868 pixels. A wallpaper at least that big, in that shape, looks sharp on all of them. Athiwalls phone wallpapers are 1440 × 3120, so iOS only ever scales them down, never up.
Screen resolutions by model
| Model | Screen | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 17 Pro Max, 16 Pro Max | 6.9 inches | 1320 × 2868 |
| iPhone 16 Plus, 15 Plus, 15 Pro Max, 14 Pro Max | 6.7 inches | 1290 × 2796 |
| iPhone 14 Plus, 13 Pro Max, 12 Pro Max | 6.7 inches | 1284 × 2778 |
| iPhone Air | 6.5 inches | 1260 × 2736 |
| iPhone 11 Pro Max, XS Max | 6.5 inches | 1242 × 2688 |
| iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 16 Pro | 6.3 inches | 1206 × 2622 |
| iPhone 16, 15, 15 Pro, 14 Pro | 6.1 inches | 1179 × 2556 |
| iPhone 16e, 14, 13, 13 Pro, 12, 12 Pro | 6.1 inches | 1170 × 2532 |
| iPhone 11, XR | 6.1 inches | 828 × 1792 |
| iPhone 11 Pro, XS, X | 5.8 inches | 1125 × 2436 |
| iPhone 8 Plus | 5.5 inches | 1080 × 1920 |
| iPhone 13 mini, 12 mini | 5.4 inches | 1080 × 2340 |
| iPhone SE (2nd and 3rd generation), 8 | 4.7 inches | 750 × 1334 |
Width is given first, as it is in the Photos app’s details. If you’re not sure which model you have, open Settings, General, About, and look at Model Name.
Why the shape matters more than the size
Every iPhone with Face ID shares roughly the same shape: the height is a little over twice the width. Phones with a Home button, like the iPhone SE and iPhone 8, are shorter, at 9:16.
When the shapes match, iOS simply scales the picture to fit. When they don’t, it fills the screen and cuts off whatever hangs over. A 1440 × 3120 wallpaper on an iPhone SE fills the width and loses a little under a tenth of its height from the top and the same from the bottom. You can drag the picture to choose which part you keep, but you can’t keep all of it.
The other way round is worse. An old 1080 × 1920 wallpaper, made for 9:16 screens, has to be enlarged by about a third to fill the height of an iPhone 16, and it still loses its sides. That’s why wallpapers saved years ago often look soft on a new phone.
Why a little bigger helps
There are three reasons to prefer a wallpaper slightly larger than your screen rather than exactly the same size.
- Perspective Zoom. When it’s on, iOS enlarges the wallpaper a little so it can shift as you tilt the phone. Spare pixels keep that enlarged picture sharp.
- Framing. If you pinch to zoom in and frame a subject, you’re enlarging the picture. A larger file gives you room to do that before it softens.
- Your next phone. Screens keep growing. The largest iPhone went from 1290 to 1320 pixels wide between generations, and a wallpaper you love should survive the upgrade.
Scaling a picture down is clean: iOS combines several pixels into one and the result looks crisp. Scaling up always softens, because the missing detail has to be guessed.
How to check a wallpaper’s size
Open the picture in Photos and swipe up, or tap the info button. The details show its pixel dimensions, such as 1440 × 3120, along with its file size. Compare both numbers with the table above: each should be at least as large as your screen’s.
On a wallpaper page on Athiwalls, the line under the Download button gives the same information before you download, along with the file’s size.
What about iPad?
An iPad rotates, so iPadOS needs a picture it can crop for both portrait and landscape. A tall phone wallpaper wastes most of itself on an iPad in landscape. A large desktop wallpaper, like the 3840 × 2160 files in the desktop collection, is a much better start: it fills a landscape iPad with room to spare and leaves a generous slice for portrait.
If you’re choosing wallpapers for the first time, the guide to setting a wallpaper on iPhone walks through the steps once you have the right file.
Questions
- What size should an iPhone wallpaper be?
- At least as large as your screen, in a 9:19.5 shape. A wallpaper of 1320 × 2868 or larger covers every current model. Athiwalls phone wallpapers are 1440 × 3120.
- Will a 4K wallpaper look better on my iPhone?
- Only if it’s the right shape. A 4K image is usually 3840 × 2160, a wide desktop shape, so on a phone most of it is cropped away and only a narrow strip down the middle is left.
- Can I use a wallpaper that’s smaller than my screen?
- You can, but iOS has to enlarge it to fill the screen, and the more it enlarges a picture, the softer it looks. Fine detail and text suffer first.
Start with the minimal collection
Keep reading
- The best wallpaper sizes for Android phones and tabletsScreen resolutions for popular Samsung, Pixel and OnePlus phones and Android tablets, the shapes to aim for, and how to find your own phone’s size.
- How to make a wallpaper fit without croppingWhy phones and computers crop wallpapers, how to stop it on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac, and how to pad a picture so nothing gets cut.
- Why wallpapers look blurry, and how to fix itThe usual reasons a wallpaper looks soft on a phone or computer, from chat apps to cloud storage to a hidden zoom, and how to fix each one.