Spotify Canvas checker: size, length and specs

What a Spotify Canvas is

A Canvas is a short looping visual that plays in Spotify's Now Playing view in place of your cover art. It fills the phone screen while the song plays. Spotify describes it on its Canvas page for artists as album artwork for the streaming age.

You add a Canvas to each track yourself in Spotify for Artists, once the release is in Spotify's system. You can change it whenever you like, so one release can carry a new loop for a tour, a video or a new chapter of the story.

Spotify Canvas size and dimensions

Spotify's Canvas guidelines ask for a vertical 9:16 video, between 720 px and 1080 px in size. The ratio is the part that matters most: anything wider or squarer than 9:16 gets cropped or framed on the phone, and the edges may get cut off on some screens anyway. Keep your subject and any detail away from the edges of the frame.

Work from the highest-quality source you have and export at 9:16. If your footage is landscape, crop it to a vertical slice rather than shrinking the whole frame into the middle of a tall one.

Spotify Canvas length

A Canvas runs 3–8 seconds and loops. Spotify suggests three kinds of loop:

• a continuous loop, where the last frame flows back into the first;
• a hard cut, with a clear edit point that can be hidden in the motion;
• a rebound, which plays the clip forward and then in reverse, an easy way to get a smooth loop.

Eight seconds is short, so Spotify's advice is to tell a whole small story in it. A trimmed-down music video tends to feel cut off; one clear idea that repeats well works better.

File type: MP4 or JPG

Spotify takes a Canvas as an MP4 video or a JPG image. An MP4 is what most phones and editors export by default. If your editor gives you a MOV or a WebM, export it again as an MP4 before you upload. A JPG Canvas shows as a still image in place of your cover, which can work for a release built around one strong photo.

What makes a Canvas work

Spotify's own tips, in short:

• Choose footage without talking, singing or rapping, since a short loop won't line up with the lyrics.
• Avoid rapid cuts and intense flashing graphics.
• Leave out your song title and artist name: the Now Playing view already shows them.
• Tie it to your cover art, profile picture or header image so the release looks like one piece of work.
• Keep it current, and change it as the story of the release moves on.

Spotify also has a Canvas content policy on what a Canvas may show. Among its rules, a Canvas is there to add to your music and shouldn't be used to sell anything.

Where Audora makes the Canvas

Audora makes a Canvas for your release, alongside the cover art, a bio in three lengths and a logo, all made to the stores' spec and yours to use with full commercial rights. The Canvas comes up on your release's calendar on the day it matters, next to your Spotify pitch and the pre-save, so you upload it while the song is still on its way.

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The exact steps for your release are in your account, dated to your release day, and Audora keeps adjusting them as it learns what works best for its artists. See what every track gets for the whole release, or our guide on how to make a Spotify Canvas if you'd like to make one yourself.