What are Uber Eats' menu photo requirements?

Uber publishes bounds rather than a target. Item photos have a floor and a ceiling on both dimensions, and the cover image at the top of your store page is a separate specification with an exact size. I first read both on 2026-08-30 and re-read them on 2026-09-22. Every figure below was unchanged.

Three things in that table are worth a second look, because all three are unusual.

Uber's list is the most explicit of the three platforms, and unlike DoorDash's it is written as a set of flat prohibitions rather than as advice. That helps: most of the reasons are checkable against your own file before you upload it again. The left column below is Uber's wording.

Separate category rules apply on top of these. Uber prohibits images of smoke related products including tobacco, vapes, cigars, CBD and e cigars, prohibits infant formula, and prohibits items requiring a prescription. For alcohol, Uber's cover photo rules ask that images be referential with no particular brand displayed, or else carry a health warning; its item photo section states no alcohol rule (re-read 2026-10-05). The alcohol guide compares all three apps.

Cover image review takes up to 3 business days. Uber publishes no review time for menu item photos, and neither DoorDash nor Grubhub publishes one at all.

You upload through Menu Maker in Uber Eats Manager: open the item, drop the photo into the Photo section, save, then click Request Approval. The photo then sits at Pending until it becomes Approved or Rejected. On a rejection, Uber's instruction is to check Menu Maker to see the reason. The See Reasons link Uber documents is for cover images in Uber Eats Manager, and its help pages do not mention a rejection email.

What Uber does not publish is an appeal. Their instruction after a rejection is to edit the photo and submit it again. Grubhub's live help page documents no route after a rejection at all.

DoorDash is the exception, and not in its documentation either: its merchant portal puts a Request review control on the rejection notice, with wording inviting you to use it if you think the rejection was a mistake. We verified that in the portal on 2026-08-30 and it is shown on our DoorDash rejection guide. So of the three, one has a contest path and hides it, and two appear to have none at all.

For a menu item photo, in Menu Maker, this is the exact path Uber publishes:

Cover images are uploaded through Uber Eats Manager on the Stores Page tab instead, which is the same split that decides where the rejection reason is shown.

Fix the file before you resubmit rather than after. Uber publishes no review time for item photos, so a photo that fails twice for two different reasons can leave a dish without your picture for days.

Yes, and this is the part of Uber's system most restaurant owners do not know about.

Uber runs a customer photo program. In Uber's own words, customers "can now submit photos of their purchased items for review," and "reviewed and accepted photos may be featured on the restaurant's Uber Eats page." Uber adds that accepted photos "may appear on the restaurant's Uber Eats store page within 1-5 business days" and "may also be featured on the restaurant's menu or for other promotional purposes."

Uber reviews these for relevance, quality and adherence to its user generated content terms, and tells customers not to submit AI generated or heavily edited images. So there is a filter. But the filter is Uber's, and the photo is of your food, taken in whatever light the customer happened to be sitting in, after a delivery.

Correction, 2026-09-24: Uber does publish an opt out. This page used to say it did not. I had checked two customer photo pages on 2026-08-30 and found none, but Uber's merchant version of the same FAQ says "Restaurants may opt-out of this feature by emailing merchants@uber.com or calling 1-833-ASK-EATS." It also narrows when customer photos appear: "User-submitted photos will only be displayed for dishes missing a photo." So a photo you upload keeps the slot yours.

Uber's page does not say you cannot. DoorDash's pages do, though not in the same words twice. Those are different situations and the difference matters.

Uber offers qualifying restaurants one complimentary photo shoot during onboarding, with additional shoots available by scheduling. The photographer covers individual items plus one profile image, and the finished files are emailed to you and to your Uber Eats representative. On the same page Uber writes: "Feel free to use the photos in your own marketing, too."

DoorDash's equivalent pages go the other direction, and DoorDash writes the rule three different ways. Its merchant blog, read 2026-09-04, makes it a prohibition: "You use these photos on DoorDash, your website, social media accounts, and promotional materials. You cannot use the photos on any other third-party delivery platforms." Its help center makes it a request, on the same day, on two separate pages: "These images are yours to keep, we only ask that you don't use the photos on any other third-party delivery platforms," and "Please don't use these images on other third-party delivery platforms."

That gap is worth holding onto. "Cannot" and "we only ask" are not the same instruction, all three pages are DoorDash's own, and none of them acknowledges the others. It is the same shape as DoorDash publishing two file-size caps on one page, and as Grubhub publishing two photo specs that disagree.

Do not read Uber's silence as permission. "Your own marketing" is a phrase about your website, your social accounts and your printed menu. It is not obviously a phrase about a competing delivery marketplace, and a merchant marketing page is not the contract. The binding terms are in the agreement you signed with each platform, and they are the thing to check before a file crosses from one app to another.

The reason this comes up at all is that a free platform shoot is only free for the platform that ran it. If the photos you own outright are the ones you paid for or shot yourself, that constraint disappears, and it is the single clearest reason a restaurant on three marketplaces ends up wanting photos that belong to it.

Uber Eats is the most forgiving of the three on shape, and completely incompatible with DoorDash on it.

Uber accepts anything from 1.25:1 to 1.5:1. Grubhub's developer specification is 4:3, which is 1.33:1 and lands in the middle of that band. Grubhub's help center says 1:1, which is 1.0 and falls off the narrow end. DoorDash accepts 16:9 only, which is 1.78:1 and falls off the wide end. There is no single file that is a legal shape on both Uber Eats and DoorDash.

That leaves one workable plan, and it is a shooting decision rather than an export setting. Shoot 4:3 with the dish centered and give it room on all four sides. From that original you can export a 4:3 for Uber Eats and Grubhub, a square for Grubhub's help center spec, and a 16:9 for DoorDash by cropping the top and bottom. The reverse never works: a 16:9 file has already thrown away the height that Uber Eats and Grubhub both need, and no amount of editing puts it back.

Uber's own centring rule pushes you the same way. If the item must not appear at the corners or off frame, the composition that satisfies Uber is also the composition that survives being cut to a different rectangle for somebody else.