Instagram highlight covers
Design matching highlight covers with icons, colors and backgrounds, and save the whole set at once.
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Matching covers for your story highlights
Highlights are the row of circles under your bio. They keep your best stories on the profile after the usual 24 hours, grouped by topic: menu, reviews, travel, how-to, behind the scenes. Their covers are one of the first things a visitor sees, and a set of icons in one style makes a profile look organized at a glance.
This highlight cover maker lets you design that set. Start from one of 16 ready-made styles, choose from 183 line icons in 11 groups, set the background, color, size and an optional ring and label, and check the live preview as a circle and as a row of highlights while you edit.
How to make Instagram highlight covers
Pick a style
Choose a background: solid color, gradient, one of 8 textures (such as linen, marble or dots) or one of your own photos.
Choose the icon
Search or browse the icons and set their color, size and line thickness. Add a border ring or a text label of up to 40 characters if you like, or use text only.
Make the whole set
With "Make a set", select up to 20 icons and download them all in the same style as one ZIP file.
Set them on Instagram
On your profile, press and hold a highlight, choose Edit highlight, then Edit cover, and pick the image from your gallery.
Sizes and export options
Instagram does not publish an official highlight cover size. Covers are taken from a story image and shown as a small circle, so the maker exports two versions:
- 1080 × 1920 PNG with the icon centered. This is a full story frame, so you can post it as a story and add it to a highlight, then use it as the cover. The centered icon survives the circular crop.
- 320 × 320 PNG, a square that you can choose directly as the cover image from your gallery.
The circle on a profile is small. Icons with thick lines and plenty of empty space around them stay recognizable; thin details and long words do not. Keep labels to one short word or leave them out, because Instagram already writes the highlight name below the circle.
Style ideas that work
Minimal
White line icons on one brand color. Clean and easy to read.
Soft neutral
Beige, sand or pastel backgrounds with dark icons; popular for beauty, home and lifestyle accounts.
Gradient
Two-color gradients that echo your post palette.
Photo-based
A blurred or darkened photo behind a white icon for a travel or food feel.
To match your covers with your posts, use the same palette in the post templates, or browse all formats together in the template gallery.
Highlight cover questions
Do I have to post the cover as a story?
No. When you edit a highlight, Instagram lets you choose a cover from your phone's gallery. Posting it as a story first is only one way to do it.
Why does my cover look cut off?
Instagram crops the cover into a circle. Keep the icon in the middle and away from the edges; the circle preview in the maker shows what will be visible.
Can I make covers for several highlights at once?
Yes. Set one style, select up to 20 icons, and export the set as a ZIP file with one PNG per cover, numbered in the order you selected them.
Can I use my own icons?
You can use one of your photos as the background, but uploading an icon is not supported. The icons come from the open-source Tabler Icons set (MIT license) and are line icons only.
Do highlight covers affect how many people see my stories?
There is no evidence that covers change reach. They help visitors find what they are looking for on your profile, which is reason enough to make them clear.
Related design tools
Stories for your highlights can be designed with the story templates. Covers, templates and collages are grouped together under Instagram design.