Share image now being cropped to 16:9 portrait

Hey Strava team! I hope you are reading this post. You have really messed up this feature which worked well before, can you rollback the latest changes and allow us, the users sharing the stories on Instagram containing full map or image of the activity? Many thanks! xxx

This was the first time I realized it was broken. This would be fine for stories and such but it’s worthless to share via text or on an Instagram grid post or Facebook. I don’t frequently post on socials but I know a lot of folks do.

Hi there! The latest Strava update has changed the thumbnail format for videos filmed in the 9:16 ratio to 1:1. (For reference, please see the attached screenshot.) Is this an intended change or a bug?

Such an obvious and commonly used feature has had this bug for so long without being fixed, which is really frustrating.

I created a ticket with Strava support. The response disappointed me:

“Sorry to hear about the issue you’re experiencing. Unfortunately, our team is limited in our ability to investigate these sorts of issues directly, but we want to make sure you have the right resources to find a solution.

Many common questions can be resolved through our Help Center, where you’ll find step-by-step guides, troubleshooting tips, and expert advice available 24/7. You can also connect with other athletes in our Community Hub, where Strava users share solutions, best practices, and insights.”

I asked Stava Developpers on Instagram. The response disappointed me too:

“Hi Hugo, We’re aware of this new implementation, where maps are now displayed in a 9:16 aspect ratio. This is not a bug but an expected change due to recent updates. However, we will share your feedback with our engineering team, noting that you preferred the previous 1:1 format.”

I asked Stava on X. Here is their answer:

“Hi Hugo! This is a known issue. While I can’t give you an exact timeline for a fix just yet, please rest assured that this is now on our radar with the appropriate priority.

Best, Kimberly Strava Support” 

I feel like the support team doesn't understand what's being asked and doesn't know how to properly pass the information on to the developers. The part of the Strava community that shares photos of their activities on iOS is still quite significant!

Hello everyone,

To clear the confusion, I want to confirm this was a implementation and not a bug.
However, I’ve recently received an update the team is aware of the photo issues and currently working on a fix.

The fix should be out relatively soon.

Thank you all for the feedback you’ve provided.

It was an implementation not a bug but it’s an issue and the fix will be out soon? Can you please clarify what you mean in regards to the fix will be out soon?

This sentiment seems like a jumble of two conflicting messages. My takeaway would be that it was an intentional change but the feedback has been that the users don’t like it and so a further change will be made?
 

Could you perhaps confirm what the behavior is expected to be after the mentioned upcoming fix?

This is what happens when ai starts writing your organisations code. The customers end up losing out. I have heard multiple other strava users complain about this issue but are not tech savy enough to log a ticket or submit feedback. This is not something you would expect from a company like strava. Please rectify something that was not broken in the first place. 

Hey ​@J.Meier,

Thank you for asking this question to help clarify.

Your quote “ My takeaway would be that it was an intentional change but the feedback has been that the users don’t like it and so a further change will be made? “  is spot on.
This is what I meant in my previous statement. Once I receive more information from our team I’ll return to this thread.

It’s not only affecting the photos. If my activitiy spans west-east and not north-south, the activity in the map share image gets severely cropped so you can’t even see start and end. How sth like this is missed by QA and not fixed over literally months is beyond me. Especially since this is a social feature that leads e.g. instagram users direktly to Strava. Strava is making a fool of itself with recent behavior, sorry to say it like this. (Api changes, group challenges for Premium only, bugs like this, the list goes on.)

 

Change absolutely sucks and I'm thinking about not using the app anymore because of the confusion that causes when trying to share on social media. 

100% this. This is the first thing that clued me in on this change. Texted a race results ‘share’ photo to my friends, only to think that I had accidentally sent the original photo because none of the data was visible in the iMessages preview view. who the heck wants to open a giant 9x16 image to see a few stats at the very bottom??

Hello everyone,

To clear the confusion, I want to confirm this was a implementation and not a bug.
However, I’ve recently received an update the team is aware of the photo issues and currently working on a fix.

The fix should be out relatively soon.

It’s not only affecting the photos. If my activitiy spans west-east and not north-south, the activity in the map share image gets severely cropped so you can’t even see start and end. How sth like this is missed by QA and not fixed over literally months is beyond me. Especially since this is a social feature that leads e.g. instagram users direktly to Strava. Strava is making a fool of itself with recent behavior, sorry to say it like this. (Api changes, group challenges for Premium only, bugs like this, the list goes on.)

 

 

Agreed, but even with the middle option - who really wants to share a 9x16 image anyway? The previous ‘squarer’ image format was great. Played well with basically all messaging apps and social media things out there. I guess if you’re trying to create vertical TikTok stories or something out of your still images, it wouldnt be ideal. At least give us the option to select the output format we want and do a proper crop Strava! This new one is terrible. 

I can’t believe this still isn’t fixed. The change sucks.

The fact that the image doesn’t show the whole track is incompetence.

This behavior started appearing today on my app and I just came here to also say:

This is horrible. I don’t even get a square preview to screenshot and crop myself.

The 1:1 aspect ratio worked just fine, now half the activity is hidden behind ugly graphics and letters or is even cropped.

I think this is a bug. Displaying square before exporting, and when you save the map or export directly to Instagram, it crops the map and you can’t even see the full map. 

They fixed that bug. I went in there today (2025/05/14) and the display before exporting matches the export; they even changed the font, increased the font size and made it bold. But it’s still in portrait mode and I ABSOLUTELY HATE THAT! I don’t share my activities anywhere other than Facebook, so my non-athletic friends and family can follow my fitness journey without actually being with me for the activities. In landscape mode, everything n the pic was there and it all looked good on Facebook. When the display before exporting matches was a square, that was okay too. I just screenshot the display square and posted that to Facebook. Now that they fixed the display pic before exporting in portrait mode TOO, it ruined everything! Strava needs to make portrait mode an optional feature and stop making drastic changes that’ll upset everyone without a thorough research to figure how the subscribers will feel. But that’s the Official Strava MO: “Piss everyone off by not asking permission first and then roll out an apology later WITHOUT actually fixing the problem.”

Help!!! A fix was released, but it’s awful!!! The photos are now cropped correctly, but the 16:9 portrait format is still mandatory. On top of that, a blurred area is added to the top and bottom of landscape photos, along with huge text. I used Strava to showcase beautiful photos of my outings on social media, and their update is pushing me to switch platforms. Plus, there’s no way to contact anyone. It feels like Strava doesn’t care about its users.
Anyone have ideas for alternatives? Adidas Running, maybe…?

I agree, the share function change the rolled out yesterday is awful - if you upload an image to share with state, its actually squashing the image so its unusable - i share to Instagram posts, I cant any more because the images are too tall to be useful. Ive opened a ticket to see what th eofficial reply is.

I really don’t like the new "Share Photo with Stats" options released today or yesterday (May 14/15 2025). They're just plain ugly; the font is too big, the aspect ratio is unusable (and no 1:1 ratio), and the photo is almost invisible. I won't be sharing my activities with Strava anymore. I might even quit Strava.

Thank you for ruining perfectly fine feature! I'm now on Camino Frances sharing my daily stages and the old shares worked really well with IG posts. But now the forced 9:16 messes this up and what's more the map is blurry AF! Can't use it anymore! 

Thanks for giving me a reason not to extend my premium. The level of incompetence in the PM department is staggering.

I wasn’t seeing the original problem but now I see the “fix” and it sucks.  SUCKS.

My share to Facebook from Tuesday looked great.

My share from today is this abomination.

Cropped in from the sides, the words over the picture, blocking a face…. seriously, WTF Strava?

“Texted a race results ‘share’ photo to my friends, only to think that I had accidentally sent the original photo because none of the data was visible in the iMessages preview view.” 
 

^ this applies to me as well. This is in fact the only way I use image exports.
 

the fix should be: “share via instagram” button creates a 16:9 vertical, and “share via text” creates original behavior, and “save image” also mimics original behavior.

hi all. so, i must be on the back-end of some staggered updates as this has only just happened to me. i can see this was raised at least 2 months ago - am i correct to conclude based on all the messages in this thread (which i have only skimmed over) that Strava has come out and said this new aspect ratio for shared photos is both mandatory and permanent? 

i just want to be clear on this before i start exploring other apps with better social options. thanks.

Hey ​@Bryant wanted to check in here with you since I see a new “fix” was rolled out that did nothing to address the complaints in this thread about forcing a 16x9 format that isn’t usable for sharing anywhere except stories. Instead it just matches the preview to the format that nobody likes. Was this a temporary fix, or was there a communication failure and what we wanted wasn’t understood or was it just decided that our opinion doesn’t matter?

I’d like to understand if this is the final state of affairs or if there is actually going to be a fix that allows us to use a 1:1 format again. I don’t share to stories so if this is the final result I have no choice but to use another app to track.

Hi folks,

I’ve just discovered this change to the aspect ratio and layout of the share-as-image function and it’s awful. Apart from the obvious cropping to 0.56:1, the stats are in a ridiculous size compared to before, obscuring almost half of the image, and the text is clearly stretched widthways. It just looks ugly and i won’t be sharing images from Strava (and hence, won’t be publicising Strava) until it’s reverted to the perfectly fine old way.

Cheers all

Pete