How to make a carousel on Instagram, step by step

Before you start: plan the carousel

Most weak carousels fail before anyone opens Instagram. Five minutes of planning fixes that.

1. Decide what the carousel is for. Teach something, show something, or tell a story. One job per carousel.
2. Write the cover line. It should promise something specific: “7 hikes under 10 km near Denver” beats “Hiking ideas”.
3. List the slides. One point, step or photo per slide. Cut anything that repeats.
4. Choose the last slide. A summary, a question for the comments, or one clear ask such as “Save this for your next trip”.
5. Pick the shape. 4:5 (1080 × 1350) is the safe default; 3:4 (1080 × 1440) fits phone photos. See Instagram carousel size.

If you need topics, the Instagram carousel ideas guide has around forty, sorted for creators and businesses.

Design the slides

For a photo carousel, this step is mostly choosing and editing photos. For a designed carousel with text, keep these rules in mind:

• Same size for every slide. Instagram crops every slide to the shape of the first one.
• Big, short text. A headline and one or two lines per slide. People read on a phone, often with the sound off and half their attention elsewhere.
• Consistent layout. The same fonts, colors and margins on each slide, so the carousel reads as one piece.
• A reason to swipe. End slides mid-thought, number them (“3/8”), or use an arrow on the cover.
• Margins. Keep text about 80 to 100 px from the edges so the profile grid crop and on-screen icons never cover it.

You can do this in any design app, start from an Instagram carousel template, or let a carousel maker draft it. Postora’s studio takes a topic, a link or your notes and returns a planned, written and designed Instagram carousel at 4:5, 3:4, 1:1 or 9:16, which you then edit and export as PNG images.

Save the finished slides to your phone’s camera roll, named or ordered so they are easy to pick in sequence.

How to post a carousel on Instagram (app)

The exact icons move around between app versions, but the flow has been stable for a long time.

1. Open Instagram and tap + (Create), then choose Post.
2. Tap the select multiple icon (two stacked squares) near your gallery.
3. Tap your photos or videos in the order you want them to appear. Each one shows a number. You can pick up to 20.
4. Check the crop. The first item sets the shape for all of them; drag each photo inside the frame to fix what shows.
5. Tap Next. Apply a filter to all slides, or tap a single slide to edit it on its own.
6. Tap Next again. Write the caption, tag people, add a location and, if you want, music.
7. Open Advanced settings to add alt text to each slide, hide like counts or turn off comments.
8. Tap Share.

How to add music to an Instagram carousel

Instagram added music to photo carousels in 2023 (PetaPixel). The song plays while people swipe through the slides.

1. Pick your photos and tap Next through the edit screen.
2. On the screen with the caption, tap Add music.
3. Search for a track or pick a suggestion, then choose the part of the song you want.
4. Tap Done and share as normal.

Music is not available to every account or in every region; business accounts in particular may see a smaller library because of licensing. If the option is missing, update the app and check whether your account type has access.

How to make a carousel on Instagram from a computer

You can also post a carousel from instagram.com in a desktop browser.

1. Click Create in the left menu and choose Post.
2. Drag your files in or click Select from computer. Select several files at once, or use the gallery icon in the bottom corner to add more.
3. Drag thumbnails to reorder, choose the crop, then click Next.
4. Add filters, then the caption, location and alt text, and click Share.

Desktop is handy when your slides were designed on a computer, since there is no need to move files to a phone first.

Can you edit an Instagram carousel after posting?

Partly. Here is what changes after a carousel is live, as of November 2026.

Reordering after publishing rolled out in March 2026 (Social Media Today). Adding new photos or videos to a live carousel is still not possible, so double-check you have every slide before you share.

Deleted a slide by mistake? Instagram keeps recently deleted items for a while under Your activity → Recently deleted, where you can restore them.

Write a caption that gets the swipe

One caption covers the whole carousel. Use it to back up the cover, not repeat it.

• First line: the reason to swipe. Only the start of the caption shows before “more”.
• Middle: context the slides do not have room for, such as who it is for or why it matters.
• End: one ask. “Save this for later” suits how-tos; a question suits opinions.
• Hashtags: Instagram now caps posts at five, so pick the most specific ones.

Full limits and the truncation point are in the Instagram caption character limit guide.

Common Instagram carousel mistakes

• Mixing shapes. Landscape and portrait photos in one carousel get cropped to the first one’s shape. Put them on same-size canvases if you need them whole.
• A cover that does not say what is inside. A pretty photo with no hook gets scrolled past.
• Too much text per slide. If it needs a paragraph, split it into two slides.
• Text near the edges. The profile grid crops 4:5 covers at the sides; keep titles centered.
• Filler slides. Twenty slots is a ceiling, not a target.
• Splitting photos by hand for a panorama. Small misalignments show at the seams. Use a splitter such as the free Instagram panorama splitter, or see the seamless Instagram carousel guide.

Making photo carousels on your phone? Postora Swipe has seamless Instagram designs for 1 to 20 photos.