Notion Covers: Best Sites, Tools & Tips [2025]

Notion covers are header images that appear at the top of your Notion pages. These decorative banners serve both aesthetic and functional purposes, helping you quickly identify different sections while reflecting your style or brand. However, it’s not so clear where to find or create nice covers, what the correct sizes are, or how to customize them. We’ll cover this (no pun intended) in this article!

What is a Notion cover?

A Notion cover is a header image that displays at the top of any Notion page, serving as a visual banner that enhances the overall appearance of your workspace.

These covers appear above your page title and content, creating an immediate visual impact when you or others access the page.

Notion covers serve multiple purposes beyond mere decoration. They help with visual organization by making different pages easily distinguishable at a glance, which is particularly useful when managing multiple projects or sections.

Additionally, these headers allow you to express your personal style, maintain brand consistency for professional workspaces, or create themed environments that match your content’s purpose.

🧠 Remember that Notion pages can be published online, so it’s important to keep your brand’s aesthetics.

Notion covers are optional, but we often use them to add a nice touch to our workspaces and help organize pages, similar to folders, views, colors, and tags.

How to add a Notion cover

Notion provides several options for adding covers, whether you want to use their built-in options or upload your own custom images.

To get started, open the Notion page to which you want to add a cover. Then, look for the “Add cover” option when you hover over the top area of the page. This will add a random cover found in Notion’s gallery.

To change it, hover over the top area of the page again and click on Change cover. This opens the cover selection interface with multiple options: Gallery, Upload, Link, and Unsplash.

Gallery

The gallery option provides Notion’s curated collection of built-in covers and solid color options.

This section includes solid colors, gradients, and themed images. You can also find images from the James Webb Telescope, NASA, the Rijksmuseum, and the MET Museum.

These covers are optimized for Notion’s dimensions and load quickly since they’re hosted directly on Notion’s servers.

Upload

The upload option allows you to use your own custom images as covers.

Click on the “Upload” tab and either drag and drop an image file or click to browse your device’s files.

Notion accepts common image formats, including JPG, PNG, and GIF files. For best results, use images that are at least 1500 pixels wide and have a landscape orientation.

Once uploaded, you can reposition the image to focus on the most relevant part of your custom cover.

Link

The link option lets you use images from external sources by pasting a direct image URL.

This is useful when you want to use an image hosted elsewhere without downloading it first. Simply paste the direct link to the image (it should end with .jpg, .png, .webp, etc.) in the URL field.

⚠️ Note: If the external source removes or relocates the image, your cover will no longer be displayed.

Unsplash

Notion has integrated Unsplash directly into its cover selection interface, allowing you to search millions of high-quality photos without leaving the platform.

Click on the “Unsplash” tab and use the search bar to find images related to your page’s topic or desired aesthetic.

All Unsplash images are free to use and automatically credited to their photographers.

How to remove a Notion cover

Removing a Notion cover is just as simple as adding one:

1. Go to the page with the cover you want to remove.
2. Hover over the existing cover image.
3. Click on the “Change cover” button that appears.
4. Click “Remove” at the top right.

Best sites to find free Notion covers

Isn’t a predefined Notion cover, uploading one yourself, or getting one from Unsplash enough for you? There are some sites you can get more images from, including some Notion cover generators specifically aimed at that. We’ll review them now.

Stock photo platforms

The stock photo platforms offer millions of high-quality and professional photographs. Here are some options:

• Unsplash. Possibly the most popular free stock photo platform with millions of pictures to choose from. Unsplash is also included in a Notion tab when choosing a new Notion cover, which makes the search more comfortable. No attribution required.
• Pexels. Similar to Unsplash and also quite a well-known resource, Pexels offers over 1 million free stock photos and videos licensed under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
• Pixabay. Another excellent stock photo platform with more than 5.5 million royalty-free images. All content is released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).
• Burst. A free stock photo platform created by Shopify, particularly focused on business and eCommerce imagery. Photos can be downloaded, edited, and used freely with no attribution required
• Kaboompics. It uses its own license, similar to CC0, and offers unique features like color search and complementary color palettes, which are perfect for getting Notion covers adapted to your brand.

Notion cover generators

• Notion Cover Generator. The most comprehensive free tool available, offering access to over 1 million background images from Unsplash. It includes custom text overlays with various fonts and colors, filter applications, device preview functionality, and high-quality PNG downloads optimized for Notion’s dimensions.
• Notion Covers. A dedicated platform specifically designed for creating Notion covers with a focus on aesthetic and minimalist designs. Offers curated background collections, simple text overlay options, and templates organized by popular themes like productivity, wellness, and creative projects.
• CoverNotion. A streamlined cover generator that focuses on speed and simplicity. It offers quick access to trending cover styles, one-click customization options, and instant downloads.
• Notion Headers. Curated by the community, this gallery has more than 1,000 free banners tagged by mood, subject, and dominant color, letting you jump straight to “minimal neutrals” or “retro tech” rather than scrolling blindly through generic stock sites.
• Notion Images. Acting like a mini-Canva, Notion Images lets you combine Unsplash backgrounds, custom gradients, tiled patterns, and dozens of Google Fonts, then tweak size, weight, and alignment until everything clicks.
• Covercons. Purpose-built for database gallery cards, Covercons outputs flat-color backgrounds topped with a single Material icon or repeating icon pattern; you simply randomize hue, glyph, and layout until a micro-brand identity emerges.

Other resources

• Minimal Covers template. A collection of pre-designed minimalist covers that emphasize clean lines, subtle colors, and elegant typography. All in a Notion template.
• GIPHY. While primarily known for GIFs, GIPHY offers a vast collection of static images and animated backgrounds that can work as unique Notion covers.
• Mitte. A design platform that provides sophisticated cover creation tools with professional-grade templates and customization options.
• Canva. While not exclusively for Notion, Canva offers specific Notion cover templates with correct dimensions

What are the dimensions of a Notion cover?

Notion banners are responsive. They stretch to fill the whole page width and then crop the top, bottom, or sides depending on the window size.

Designing at 1500 × 600 px, which is a 5:2 (15:6) ratio, gives you the best chance of looking sharp everywhere.

These are the recommended pixel sized by device:

• Desktop: 1500 × 600 px (minimum)
• Mobile: 1170 × 445 px
• Tablet: 1170 × 290 px

Larger files, such as 2500 × 1000 px or 3000 × 1200 px, are fine if you need retina-level clarity; just keep the same 5:2 aspect ratio.

Because Notion only lets you move the image vertically, anything outside the center 70% can be cut off on smaller screens. A practical “safe area” is roughly 1170 × 230 px in the middle of your canvas—keep logos or text inside that box.

Notion accepts JPG, PNG, GIF, SVG, WEBP, and more, but images over 5 MB are rejected on the free plan and can blur when downscaled. Aim for compressed files under 1 MB for faster page loads.

Conclusion

Start with a 1500 × 600 px canvas (or 1170 × 445 px for mobile), keep files under 300 KB, and compress to WebP for a good loading time. When you combine the right size, lightweight format, and on-brand visuals, each page instantly feels clearer, faster, and more professional.

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