Crop an image by hand
Drag a box over the image to choose exactly what to keep, or lock the box to a ratio when the result has to fit a fixed shape. Featured images and social cards get cropped whether you plan for it or not — doing it here means you decide what survives instead of letting the theme cut someone's head off.
Common questions
What ratio should a WordPress featured image be?
1.91:1 is the safest choice. It matches what Facebook, LinkedIn and X use for link previews, and most themes crop featured images to something close to it.
Can I choose exactly what to keep?
Yes. Drag the box to move it and pull the corners to resize. Leaving the ratio on Free lets you crop to any shape; choosing a ratio locks the box so it can only be moved and scaled, never distorted.
Does cropping lose quality?
Cropping itself only discards pixels outside the box, so what remains is untouched. The file is re-encoded afterwards, which costs a little on JPEG — keep the quality slider high if the image will be edited again later.
