How to Upload a 360 Photo to Facebook

Uploading a 360 photo to Facebook transforms a flat image into an interactive world your audience can move through, and it's simpler than you might think. This guide breaks down everything from taking a 360 photo to the exact steps for uploading it, including the one critical edit that most people miss that will make your post far more engaging. We’ll cover what gear you need (or don't need), how to check your file, and best practices for creating immersive content that stops the scroll.

What Exactly is a 360 Photo?

Think of a 360 photo not as a single picture, but as a complete spherical scene wrapped up in one image file. When viewed on Facebook, users can tilt their phones, click and drag with a mouse, or use a VR headset to look around as if they were standing right where the photo was taken. It captures everything in every direction - up, down, and all around.

Technically, these are called equirectangular images. This is a fancy way of saying the photo has been flattened out into a 2:1 rectangular format, much like a world map lays the spherical globe flat. What tells Facebook to display this flattened rectangle as an interactive sphere is a specific piece of information embedded in the image's file data, known as metadata. Without this special metadata, Facebook just sees a regular, oddly stretched-out panoramic image.

The beauty of this format is its immersive nature. For brands, creators, and individuals, it’s a powerful way to:

• Showcase a real estate property or vacation rental.
• Give a behind-the-scenes tour of your office, studio, or event space.
• Share stunning, all-encompassing landscapes from your travels.
• Put your audience in the middle of the action at a concert, conference, or celebration.

Getting it right is all about starting with the correct type of image and making sure Facebook recognizes it correctly upon upload.

How to Create a 360 Photo for Facebook

You don't need expensive equipment to get started. While dedicated cameras offer the best quality, your smartphone is perfectly capable of producing an impressive 360-degree image.

Method 1: Using a Dedicated 360 Camera

For the highest quality and simplest workflow, a dedicated 360 camera is the way to go. These devices are designed specifically for this purpose and handle all the technical details for you. They use two or more fisheye lenses to capture the entire scene at once.

Popular Models:

• Ricoh Theta Series: Known for being user-friendly and producing great quality images that are easy to share directly from their app.
• Insta360 Series (like the X3): A powerhouse in the consumer 360 space, offering excellent image and video quality with tons of features.
• GoPro MAX: A rugged and versatile option that combines GoPro's action camera legacy with 360-degree capabilities.

The biggest advantage of using these cameras is that they automatically stitch the images from their lenses together and, most importantly, embed the necessary 360 metadata into the final JPEG file. The file is ready for Facebook right out of the camera.

Method 2: Using Your Smartphone

Most modern smartphones have a built-in function to capture 360-degree panoramas. It’s slightly more work than a dedicated camera but costs nothing extra.

For iPhones:

The native iOS Camera app has a fantastic Pano mode. To create a 360-degree photo, you’ll slowly move your phone to capture a very wide panorama. For the full spherical effect, you’ll have to capture multiple rows and stitch them together with a third-party app. However, Facebook's built-in 360 photo feature works with wide panoramas taken on an iPhone directly. Just open the camera app, swipe to Pano mode, and capture a panorama that's at least 100 degrees wide. Facebook will often recognize this and convert it into a movable, scenic view.

For Android Phones (Google Pixel, Samsung, etc.):

Many Android devices have a similar "Panorama" or "Surround Shot" mode. Google's Pixel phones excelled at this with their "Photo Sphere" mode in the Camera app. This mode guides you to capture a series of photos - up, down, and all around - that the phone then stitches into a complete, ready-to-upload 360 photo with the correct metadata included.

Method 3: Using a DSLR and Stitching Software

For professional photographers seeking ultimate control and resolution, a DSLR is the tool of choice. This process is far more involved:

1. Mount the DSLR on a panoramic tripod head to rotate it around its nodal point, avoiding parallax error.
2. Take a series of overlapping photos to cover the entire 360x180 degree view.
3. Use specialized desktop software like PTGui, Hugin, or Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop to stitch the individual photos together into one large equirectangular image.

However, these stitched photos typically do not contain the 360 metadata Facebook needs. You have to add it manually in the next step.

Prepping Your Photo: The Critical Metadata Check

This is where many people get stuck. If you upload an image and it just looks like a wide, distorted picture, it means the 360 metadata is missing. Facebook needs this digital "tag" to know how to display the file.

If you used a 360 camera or a smartphone's Photo Sphere mode, the metadata should already be there. If you stitched a panorama yourself or are unsure, you'll need to check and potentially add it.

How to Manually Add 360 Metadata

Adding metadata sounds complicated, but tools are available to make it easy. One of the most common methods is to use the "360 Photo Metadata Injector" tool, which was popularized by Google. You can find versions of this online for free.

The process generally looks like this:

1. Download and open the metadata injecting tool. Many are simple, standalone apps that don't require installation.
2. Click "Open" and select your stitched equirectangular image file (it should be a JPEG).
3. Select the checkbox that says "My photo is spherical."
4. Click "Inject metadata." The tool will create a new version of your file, usually with "_injected" added to the filename.

This new "_injected" file is the one you should upload to Facebook. It now contains the data needed to display correctly.

Check Resolution and Aspect Ratio

• Aspect Ratio: A proper 360 equirectangular photo must have a 2:1 aspect ratio. That means its width is exactly double its height (e.g., 6000 pixels wide by 3000 pixels high).
• Resolution: Facebook compresses photos. To maintain decent quality, aim for a high resolution. A width of at least 4000 pixels is a good starting point, but 6000 pixels or more will look much sharper.
• File Size: Facebook has a file size limit for photos, usually around 30-45MB. If your high-resolution stitched image is larger, save it as a high-quality JPEG to reduce the size.

Step-by-Step: How to Upload Your 360 Photo to Facebook

With your metadata-injected, high-resolution JPG ready to go, the upload process itself is straightforward.

On a Desktop Computer:

1. Navigate to your Facebook Profile, Page, or Group where you want to post.
2. Click on the "What's on your mind?" box to start a new post.
3. Click the "Photo/Video" icon and select your 360 photo file from your computer.
4. Wait a few moments while Facebook uploads and processes the image. You will know it worked when a small globe icon appears on the corner of the photo's thumbnail. This is your confirmation that Facebook has recognized it as a 360 photo.
5. Add your caption, hashtags, and tag anyone needed. Give people context for what they are looking at.
6. This is the most important step: Click the "Edit" button on the photo (it often looks like a paintbrush icon). This will open the 360 photo editor.
7. Inside the editor, click and drag the photo to set the initial starting point. This is the first thing people will see before they start exploring. Choose the most interesting focal point of your scene. If you skip this, Facebook might default to a random, boring view.
8. Once you've set your preferred view, click "Save."
9. Click the "Post" button to share it with your audience.

On the Facebook Mobile App:

The process on mobile is very similar and just as simple.

1. Make sure your 360 photo is saved to your phone's camera roll or gallery.
2. Open the Facebook app and tap "What's on your mind?" to create a post.
3. Tap "Photo/Video" and select your 360 image from your library.
4. Just like on desktop, watch for the globe icon to appear on the thumbnail. This confirms it’s being treated as an interactive photo.
5. After selecting the photo, you should be able to tap on it to adjust the starting view. Pan around until you find the perfect vantage point and save it.
6. Write your descriptive caption.
7. Tap "Post." Your audience can now explore the scene by physically tilting their phones or swiping across their screen.

Best Practices for Creating Engaging 360 Content

Just posting a 360 photo isn’t enough. To make it truly engaging, you should follow a few creative guidelines.

• Choose an Interesting "Hero" Angle: As mentioned above, setting the starting camera view is everything. It's the "thumbnail" of your interactive experience and needs to grab attention immediately. Frame a beautiful sunset, a bustling crowd, or an important landmark as the default view.
• Give Your Audience a Clue: Your caption is your tour guide. Encourage interaction by saying things like, "Pan left to see the surprise guest!" or "Take a look up to see the incredible ceiling details." This turns a passive viewing experience into an active one.
• Get the Lighting Right: Just like regular photography, lighting is critical. Since a 360 camera captures everything, harsh lighting from one direction (like the bright sun) can look unflattering in another. Overcast days or the "golden hour" right after sunrise or before sunset often provide the most even and beautiful light.
• Tell a Story and Provide Context: Don’t just arbitrarily post a 360 photo of a room. Explain why it’s special. Is it your brand-new office? The venue for an exciting upcoming event? The view from your favorite hiking spot? Content without context is just noise.

Final Thoughts

Uploading a 360 photo to Facebook is a straightforward way to create captivating, immersive content that stands out in a crowded feed. Once you understand the role of metadata and the importance of setting a starting point, the process becomes second nature and elevates how you share experiences with your audience.

Creating immersive visuals is a fantastic first step in building a modern social media strategy. Once those visuals are ready, the real challenge becomes planning and sharing them consistently across all your profiles. To streamline that part of the process, we built Postbase, a social media management tool designed for today's content. We help you use our simple visual calendar to schedule your 360 photos, Reels, and Stories everywhere at once, allowing you to focus on creating great content rather than juggling multiple apps.