Guide
Notion cover image size
Every guide on this gives you a number and stops. The number is not the problem — people size their covers correctly and they still come out cropped, off-centre or blurry, because Notion does something to the banner that almost nobody explains.
All figures verified 4 August 2026 against vendor pricing pages and independent trackers.
The number, first
1500 × 600 pixels, a 5:2 ratio, at 72 DPI. Going larger is fine and sharper on high-density displays — 2500 × 1000 or 3000 × 1200 hold the same ratio. Going smaller is the mistake, because Notion stretches an undersized image to fill the banner and it goes visibly soft.
One figure worth flagging. Six of the seven sources we checked give 1500 × 600 at 5:2. One gives 1500 × 844 at 16:9. They cannot both be right, and 5:2 matches both the shape of the rendered banner and the majority of recent sources, so that is what we have followed.
Now the part that actually matters
Sizing the file correctly does not stop the cover looking wrong, because the banner is responsive. It stretches to the full width of the page and crops inward as the window narrows. A wide desktop shows nearly all of your image. A phone shows roughly the middle third of it.
So the practical rule is not about size at all. Put your text, your logo and whatever the image is actually of inside the middle third. Everything outside that is decoration that some visitors will never see.
You can adjust the vertical framing after uploading — hover the cover and choose Reposition, then drag. What you cannot adjust is the horizontal crop, which is decided by the reader’s window.
Page icons: 280 × 280
Icons are square and want to be at least 280 × 280 pixels. Use PNG for graphics so edges stay crisp and transparency survives; JPG is fine for a photograph, which an icon rarely should be.
The icon renders small — in the sidebar, in the page header, and wherever the page is linked from elsewhere. Detailed artwork turns to mush at that scale. A single shape in two colours reads at every size, which is why emoji work so well and why most custom icons that look good in a design tool disappoint in the sidebar.
Where to get them without paying
Notion has a built-in gallery and an Unsplash search in the cover picker, and for most pages that is genuinely enough. Covers chosen that way are not uploads, so they do not count against your file storage — which matters on the free plan, where every uploaded file is capped at 5 MB.
Beyond that there are cover generators that overlay text on Unsplash backgrounds, and marketplaces selling themed packs. Both are fine. As with widgets, note that a cover hotlinked from a third-party service is a dependency: if that service disappears, so does your banner. Download and upload instead of linking, and the image is yours.
A checklist that fits on one line
- Export at 1500 × 600 or larger, same 5:2 ratio, 72 DPI.
- Keep anything important inside the middle third.
- Compress it — a few hundred kilobytes, not megabytes.
- Upload rather than hotlink, so nobody else’s outage is your problem.
- Icons square, 280 × 280 minimum, PNG, one simple shape.
Common questions
What size should a Notion cover image be?
1500 x 600 pixels, a 5:2 ratio, at 72 DPI. Larger is fine and better on high-density screens — 2500 x 1000 or 3000 x 1200 keep the same ratio. Smaller is the one thing to avoid: Notion stretches an undersized image to fill the space and it goes soft.
Why is my Notion cover blurry?
Almost always because the source image is under 1500 pixels wide and Notion has stretched it. Re-export at 1500 wide or more. Some users report that vector artwork saved as SVG holds up better than JPG or PNG at the same dimensions, though that is a user observation rather than anything Notion documents.
Why is my cover cropped or off-centre?
Because the banner is responsive. It fills the full page width and crops inward as the window narrows, so a wide desktop shows most of the image and a phone shows roughly the central third. Anything you place near the left or right edge will disappear on smaller screens. Keep text and focal points in the middle third, and use Reposition to adjust the vertical framing.
What size should a Notion page icon be?
280 x 280 pixels or larger, square, and PNG if it is a graphic rather than a photograph so the edges stay crisp and transparency survives. The icon appears in the sidebar, the page header and anywhere the page is linked, so it is rendered small — simple shapes read far better than detailed artwork.
Do covers and icons count against my Notion storage?
Uploaded ones do, and on the free plan every file is capped at 5 MB each. A cover has no business being anywhere near that: a well-compressed 1500 x 600 JPG is usually a few hundred kilobytes. Covers pulled from Unsplash through Notion’s own picker are not uploads and do not count.
How we checked this
Prices and limits were taken from each vendor’s published pricing and cross-checked against independent trackers on 4 August 2026. Where sources disagreed we followed the more recent and said so in the text. We have not run these products for this guide; it is desk research, and thorough, and those are different things. Our full method is on the about page.
Vendors change prices and plan gates without notice. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it and note the change.
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