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 read both on 2026-08-30.

Two things in that table are worth a second look, because both 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. A photo must not:

There is also a positive framing rule, and it is the one most likely to catch a good photo: the item must be framed in the center, and Uber adds that items should not appear at the corners or off frame. A dramatic off center composition that looks like editorial food photography is out of spec here even when it is a better picture.

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 asks that images be referential with no particular brand displayed.

Up to 3 business days. Uber is the only one of the three major platforms that publishes a review time 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 shows a See Reasons link with the specific reasons, and the same reasons are emailed.

What Uber does not publish is an appeal. Their instruction after a rejection is to edit the photo and submit it again, which is also the only route Grubhub documents.

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.

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

Uber runs a customer photo programme. 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.

Uber does not publish a merchant opt out or a removal route on either of its customer photo pages. I looked for one on 2026-08-30 and could not find it. That is a statement about what is documented, not a claim that no route exists. If this matters to you, ask your Uber Eats representative directly rather than assuming either way.

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 centre 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 centre 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 centred 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 centre 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.