The short answer: TikTok carousels — officially photo mode — take up to 35 images at 1080 × 1920 px (9:16 vertical), with music, text overlays, and stickers on top. Viewers swipe manually or let TikTok auto-advance the slides like a slideshow.

TikTok carousel specs at a glance

Spec	Value	Notes
Image size	1080 × 1920 px (9:16)	Full-screen vertical; other ratios get letterboxed
Max images	35	Sweet spot is 5–10
Formats	JPG, PNG, WEBP	Export JPG 80–90% for photos, PNG for text-heavy slides
Music	Yes — sound choice affects distribution	Trending sounds still matter on photo posts
Captions	4,000 characters	Long captions are read far more on carousels than videos

Design note: TikTok overlays its UI more aggressively than Instagram — username and caption bottom-left, action rail on the right. Keep text inside the center ~80% of the frame, and put nothing important in the bottom quarter.

How to post a TikTok carousel

Tap + in TikTok → shoot or tap Upload.
Select multiple photos → TikTok switches to photo mode automatically.
Arrange the order, add sound, text, and stickers per slide.
Write the caption (front-load the hook — the first line shows in feed), then post.

Posting through the API (what scheduling tools use) delivers carousels to your drafts/inbox for review before publishing — TikTok keeps a human confirmation step for third-party photo posts.

Why photo mode punches above its weight

TikTok has publicly nudged photo posts with extra distribution since photo mode launched, and the practical result is visible to anyone who runs both formats: for small accounts, a good carousel routinely out-reaches a mediocre video. Two structural reasons:

Completion is cheap. Swiping 7 slides takes 15 seconds; watching your 60-second video to the end is a much bigger ask. Completion feeds the algorithm.
Saves skew carousel. Listicle-style slides (“5 tools…”, “3 mistakes…”) are saved as reference material, and saves are among the strongest ranking signals.

The slide structure that works is identical to Instagram’s: hook slide, promise slide, one idea per slide, ask at the end — just built at 9:16 instead of 4:5.

One brief, every platform

The same content, three canvases: 4:5 for Instagram, PDF pages for LinkedIn, 9:16 for TikTok. Doing that resizing and re-export by hand every day is exactly the kind of work that kills posting streaks.

CarouselMaker renders each post for every connected platform automatically — Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn publish on schedule, TikTok receives ready-to-post drafts. See how it works →