Does Facebook upload full quality photos?

Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms, with billions of users sharing photos every day. When you upload a photo to Facebook, it gets compressed to save space on their servers. This leads many users to wonder – does Facebook upload the full quality version of your photos?

The Short Answer

No, Facebook does not retain or upload the original full resolution version of photos uploaded to their platform. They compress photos to save storage space and optimize loading speeds.

How Facebook Handles Photo Uploads

When you upload a photo to Facebook, it undergoes the following process:

Facebook checks the image dimensions and resolution.
If the image exceeds certain size limits, Facebook will compress it to reduce file size.
Compression is done while maintaining visual quality as much as possible.

The compressed photo is uploaded and stored on Facebook’s servers.
The compressed image is displayed in your Facebook feed and profile.

Facebook’s image compression and downsizing process aims to balance visual quality with fast loading speeds across different devices and connections. Their systems are optimized to reduce file sizes without noticeably sacrificing the visible quality of your photos.

Facebook Photo Upload Size Limits

Facebook enforces limits on the maximum display sizes and file sizes of images uploaded to their platform:

Maximum display width of photos in feeds is 504 pixels.
Maximum display height of photos in feeds is 504 pixels.

Maximum display width of photos on profiles and pages is 720 pixels.
Maximum display height of photos on profiles and pages is 720 pixels.
Maximum file size of a photo upload is 25 MB.

If you upload an image larger than these limits, Facebook will scale it down during the compression process. This ensures fast loading speeds and a consistent experience across different browsing environments.

Photo Quality Loss from Compression

Facebook’s compression can reduce photo file sizes anywhere from 50-90%, with larger starting file sizes seeing more drastic reductions. This significantly cuts down storage and transmission requirements.

The amount of visible quality loss from Facebook’s compression depends on the image content and the viewing environment:

Photos with simpler content, like logos and illustrations, suffer almost no visible loss of quality.
Natural images with complex textures and details lose some sharpness and fine details.
The perceived quality loss is most noticeable when viewing photos zoomed in at 100% crop.

At normal social media viewing sizes, most users do not notice a difference in quality.

Facebook continually refines their compression algorithms to minimize visible artifacts and quality degradation of your pictures. Under normal use cases, the compression achieves substantial file size reductions with no noticeable change in visual quality at common viewing resolutions.

Storing Full Resolution Photos

While Facebook only stores compressed versions of your uploads, there are ways to retain the original full resolution photos:

Save a copy of any photos you upload to Facebook to your local device storage or cloud backups.
Use dedicated photo storage services like Google Photos or iCloud to automatically back up your full resolution photo library.
Upload photos directly to storage services instead of Facebook to retain full quality.

Download and re-save photos displayed on Facebook to recover maximum available resolution.

Following these best practices ensures you always have access to your original untouched photos for printing, editing, and archiving.

Special Cases for Full Quality Uploads

There are a few special cases where Facebook will retain your full resolution photo uploads:

High Quality Property Images: Real estate photos uploaded to Facebook marketplace support resolutions up to 3,840 x 2,880 pixels to showcase property details.
Advertisements: Images uploaded for Facebook advertisements can have resolutions up to 2,048 x 2,048 pixels.
Facebook Profiles: Your main profile picture can have a maximum resolution of 4,032 x 4,032 pixels.

However, these cases represent a tiny fraction of overall photos uploaded. The vast majority of photos on Facebook feeds and profiles undergo compression and downscaling to reduce file sizes.

Does Image Compression Affect Image Processing?

Facebook’s automated image processing systems are designed to work effectively with compressed images:

Object Recognition: Facebook can still detect objects, faces, texts, and scenes in compressed images.

Augmented Reality Effects: AR effects and masks work smoothly on scaled down images.
Photo Tagging: You can still tag friends in compressed photos.

The compressed resolutions meet the needs of Facebook’s computer vision algorithms. Higher resolution does not necessarily improve or degrade these automated processes.

Impact of Compression on Photo Printing

Facebook’s image compression may degrade print quality if you directly print photos displayed on their platform:

Printing compressed photos beyond 5×7 inches may show visible pixelation and artifacts.
The lack of fine details becomes more apparent in larger print sizes.

Photos printed from Facebook may look noticeably soft and fuzzy compared to the originals.

For the best print quality, you should access the original full resolution versions of your photos saved offline or on a cloud storage service.

Print Sizes Supported by Facebook Photos

Print Size	Resulting Print Quality
Wallet (2×3 in)	No noticeable issues
4×6 inches	Minimal degradation in quality
5×7 inches	Acceptable but softness visible
8×10 inches	Blurriness, pixelation obvious
11×14 inches	Very poor, not recommended

Keep print sizes under 5×7 inches if printing directly from Facebook compressed images for best results. Use original full resolution versions for larger professional photo prints.

Uploading Photos via Mobile Apps

Facebook’s mobile apps for iOS and Android also compress photos during upload, using similar resolution rules and techniques as the desktop platform:

Mobile app uploads are resized and compressed to less than 720p resolution.
This reduces cellular data usage and saves storage on phones.

EXIF camera metadata is stripped during the compression process.
Users cannot upload original full resolution versions within Facebook’s mobile apps.

You need to save photos taken on your phone’s camera roll externally before uploading to retain the original maximum quality. Facebook mobile app uploads will always be compressed.

Facebook Photo Upload Quality on iOS

When uploading photos on iOS devices like iPhones to Facebook, the following compression settings are applied:

Photos from your camera roll are scaled down to a maximum of 3 Megapixels, or 2048 x 1536 pixels.
HEIC photo format from iPhone is converted to JPEG before uploading.

iPhone portrait mode depth maps and segmentation data is discarded.
Live Photos are stripped down to just the JPEG still image.

To preserve full iPhone photo quality, you need to save images to your iCloud Photos or local storage before uploading to Facebook.

Facebook Photo Upload Quality on Android

When uploading photos on Android devices to Facebook, the following compression settings are applied:

Camera images are compressed to a maximum resolution of 3 Megapixels, or 2048 x 1536 pixels.
RAW camera formats like DNG are discarded and only the JPEG thumbnail is uploaded.

Depth and segmentation maps from portrait mode shots are stripped.

To retain full resolution photos taken on Android phones, you need to back them up first before uploading to Facebook.

Facebook Photo Upload Quality for Businesses

Business profiles on Facebook are subject to the same compression limits as personal accounts for their uploads:

Cover photos are compressed to maximum resolutions of 820 x 312 pixels.
Shared post images are scaled down to 720 pixels width and height.
Ads follow the normal 2,048 x 2,048 pixel limit.

For product catalogs, Marketplace listings, and other business images requiring higher quality, companies need to host them externally and link to Facebook instead of directly uploading.

How to Upload Higher Quality Photos to Facebook

If you want to display higher resolution photos on Facebook beyond their standard limits, here are some options:

Link to External Image Host: Upload full quality photos to another site and link to them from your Facebook post.

Embed External Image: Use the image embed HTML tag to directly display a high resolution photo stored externally.
Upload to Ad Library: Facebook’s ad image requirements allow larger 2,048 x 2,048 pixel images.

However, there is no way around Facebook’s feed display size limits. Your external high resolution images will still be scaled down to 504 x 504 pixels in feeds.

Why Does Facebook Compress Photos?

Facebook provides the following reasons for compressing and downscaling images uploaded to their platform:

Drastically reduces storage space needed for billions of photos.
Minimizes Facebook server and CDN bandwidth requirements.

Optimizes news feed performance on slow connections.
Creates consistent experience across different devices.
Maintains privacy by avoiding unnecessarily high resolutions.

By keeping images under 720p resolution with aggressive compression, Facebook is able to operate more efficiently and cheaply while delivering a reliable user experience.

Privacy Concerns Over Photo Compression

Some privacy advocates have raised concerns over Facebook’s stripping of EXIF data and compressing of images:

EXIF metadata like camera model and GPS location is removed.

Stripping EXIF data can make identifying original device harder.
Minor visual details are lost which can impact certain forensic techniques.
Smaller file sizes limit potential steganographic data embedding.

However, Facebook claims the visual artifacts from compression actually help preserve privacy by masking sensitive details. They must balance both privacy and utility for their billions of users.

Alternatives to Upload Full Quality Photos

If you want to publicly display your photos in full original resolution while still sharing them on Facebook, some alternative options include:

Google Photos – Free unlimited storage for high quality photos.

Flickr – 1TB of photo storage space provided free.
Imgur – Popular public image and album hosting site.
500px – Photo community supporting high resolution uploads.

Instagram – Owned by Facebook, with some compression, but higher limits.

Each platform comes with its own size limits, but may allow higher resolutions than Facebook’s feed display caps. However, you lose the convenience of seamless integration and need to link to external sites.

Should Facebook Allow Full Quality Photo Uploads?

There are reasonable arguments on both sides of whether Facebook should support full resolution photo uploads:

Arguments For Allowing Full Quality Uploads

Allows maximum image quality and detail preservation.
Enables full-resolution photo printing and merchandising.
Reduces need for external backups of originals.

Provides more future-proof archival of important memories.
Lets professional photographers showcase work properly.

Arguments Against Full Quality Support

Increases Facebook storage costs exponentially.

Slows news feed load times and degrades performance.
Hurts user experience on low bandwidth connections.
Wastes bandwidth on oversized images for most use cases.

Leads to worse experience on lower resolution devices.

Facebook currently prioritizes fast performance and reliability for the mainstream use case over preserving professional photo quality for a niche audience. But they may consider higher resolution support in certain contexts if user needs justify the tradeoffs.

Conclusion

In summary, due to storage, performance, and bandwidth constraints, Facebook resizes and compresses images during upload to limits under 720p resolution. They do not retain or display original full quality photo uploads on their platform. However, for most casual viewing scenarios, their compression maintains perfectly acceptable visual quality while enabling smooth news feed loading. Users wanting to preserve full untouched photo resolutions need to save their images externally before uploading to Facebook.