Facebook Link Preview Image Not Showing — How to Fix It

Last updated: April 2026 7 min read

How Facebook Picks the Preview Image
Diagnosing the Problem — What to Check First
Using Facebook's Sharing Debugger
Fixing Images That Facebook Cannot Fetch
Forcing Facebook to Refresh the Preview
Frequently Asked Questions

You paste a URL into a Facebook post and the preview shows no image, a tiny thumbnail, or an image from somewhere else on the page. It is one of the most common social sharing problems and it almost always comes down to one of a handful of fixable issues.

This guide covers every reason Facebook might not show your link preview image and exactly how to fix each one — including how to check your tags before sharing and how to force Facebook to refresh a cached preview after you have made changes.

How Facebook Picks the Preview Image

When you share a URL, Facebook's scraper fetches your page and looks for the og:image tag in the HTML head section. If it finds a valid og:image URL, it fetches that image and uses it for the preview card.

If og:image is missing, Facebook tries to find a usable image in the page body. It typically picks the first large image it finds, which often is not the image you intended. If there is no large image in the body, you get a preview with no image at all.

What Facebook requires for the large card format

og:image tag must be present in the <head> element
Image URL must be absolute (https://yourdomain.com/image.jpg — not /image.jpg)
Image must be publicly accessible without login or authentication
Minimum 200x200px for any image to appear
At least 1200x630px for the large news feed card format
Aspect ratio as close to 1.91:1 as possible for best display

Diagnosing the Problem — What to Check First

Before assuming the og:image tag is broken, run the page through a free OG tag checker. View your page source (Ctrl+U or Cmd+U in your browser), copy the full HTML, and paste it into the checker. Look at what it reports for the og:image field.

The og:image tag is missing entirely

If the checker shows no og:image tag, you need to add one. Open Graph tags go inside the <head> section of your HTML:

<meta property="og:image" content="https://yourdomain.com/og-image.jpg" />
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1200" />
<meta property="og:image:height" content="630" />

The og:image tag is present but uses a relative URL

Facebook fetches the image from its own servers, not from your visitor's browser. It needs the full absolute URL. Change /images/preview.jpg to https://yourdomain.com/images/preview.jpg.

The image is present but small

Images below 200x200px will not appear at all. Images below 1200px wide will show in the small card format (thumbnail beside text) rather than the large card format (full-width image above text). Recreate the image at 1200x630px.

Using Facebook's Sharing Debugger

Facebook's Sharing Debugger is the definitive tool for diagnosing Facebook-specific preview problems. It shows exactly what Facebook's scraper found on your page.

How to use it

Go to developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
Enter your page URL
Click "Debug"

The debugger shows the og: tags Facebook found, the preview it will display, and any warnings or errors. If your tags are correct but Facebook is showing an old cached preview, click "Scrape Again" to force a fresh fetch.

What the warnings mean

"Provided og:image is not big enough" — your image is below the recommended size threshold. Facebook may still show it but in the small format.
"og:image could not be fetched" — Facebook's scraper tried to download your image but got a 403, 404, or connection error. Check that the image URL is publicly accessible.
"og:image:width and og:image:height should be specified" — not an error, just a suggestion. Adding these tags helps Facebook determine the card format without fetching the image first.

Fixing Images That Facebook Cannot Fetch

Even if the og:image URL looks correct, Facebook's scraper may not be able to fetch the image. These are the most common reasons.

Image is behind authentication or access control

If your images are stored in an S3 bucket with restricted public access, or behind a CDN that requires signed URLs, Facebook cannot fetch them. The og:image URL must point to an image that any server on the internet can download without credentials.

Cloudflare or bot protection blocking the scraper

Some security configurations block automated requests to image files. Facebook's scraper can look like a bot to aggressive firewalls. If you use Cloudflare, check that your image path is not covered by a security rule that might block crawlers. You can also verify by pasting the og:image URL into Facebook's Sharing Debugger — if it reports a fetch failure, the URL is blocked.

HTTP instead of HTTPS

Facebook requires HTTPS for og:image URLs. An HTTP image URL will either fail silently or trigger a mixed content warning that causes the fetch to fail.

Image path changed but cache has the old URL

If you updated the og:image to a new URL, Facebook may still be trying to fetch from the old URL it cached. Use the Sharing Debugger to scrape again and clear the cache.

Forcing Facebook to Refresh the Preview

Facebook caches preview data per URL. Once it has scraped a page, it stores the result and uses the cached version for new shares of that URL. If you fix your og:image tag, Facebook will not automatically pick up the change.

How to force a re-scrape

Go to developers.facebook.com/tools/debug
Enter your URL
Click "Scrape Again"
Verify the og:image shown in the debug results is now the correct image
Click "Share Preview" to see how the post will look in the feed

After scraping, new shares of that URL will use the refreshed preview data. Existing posts and comments with that URL embedded will not automatically update — Facebook stores preview data per-post, not per-URL, for already-published content.

If you cannot use the Sharing Debugger

A simpler workaround is to add a query string to the URL you are sharing. Facebook treats ?v=2 or any query string as a technically different URL, which forces a fresh scrape. For example, share https://yourdomain.com/page/?v=2 instead of https://yourdomain.com/page/. The page still loads correctly — query strings are ignored by your server — but Facebook treats it as a new URL and fetches a fresh preview.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Facebook is showing the wrong image even though I set og:image correctly. Why?

Facebook is almost certainly showing a cached version of the old preview. Go to developers.facebook.com/tools/debug, enter your URL, and click "Scrape Again." This forces Facebook to fetch a fresh copy of your page and update the cached preview data.

What is the exact image size I need for Facebook to show the large preview card?

Facebook shows the large card format (full-width image above the title and description) when the og:image is at least 1200px wide with a 1.91:1 aspect ratio (1200x630). Images below that threshold show in the smaller card format with a thumbnail on the left.

My page has a og:image tag but Facebook says it could not fetch the image. What does that mean?

Facebook's scraper tried to download the image URL in your og:image tag but got an error. Common causes: the image requires authentication, the server blocked Facebook's bot user-agent, or the image URL uses HTTP instead of HTTPS. Paste the og:image URL directly into an incognito browser window — if it loads, the URL is valid. If not, fix the accessibility issue.

Can Facebook show a different image from my og:image on mobile vs desktop?

Facebook uses the same og:image on both mobile and desktop, but the cropping and layout differ. On mobile, the preview card is narrower, so wide images may be cropped on the sides. Keeping your most important content in the center 70% of the image prevents cropping issues on mobile.