Most Freepik rejections never reach a human reviewer. The platform runs an automatic pass first - file format, dimensions, size, duplicates, metadata - and anything that fails it is refused before a moderator ever opens the image. Knowing which gate stopped your file is the difference between a five-minute export fix and a creative problem.
Two Systems, Two Kinds of Rejection
Contributor rejections come from two places, and they behave nothing alike. The automatic layer is a set of hard thresholds applied at upload: a file either sits inside the accepted band or it does not, and no judgement is involved. The review layer is human, and it weighs originality, similarity to work already in the library, technical quality and rights clearance.
That split is useful because the remedies are different. An automatic rejection is almost always fixed in your export settings, once, for the whole batch. A reviewer rejection is feedback on the work itself, and re-uploading the same file with tidier metadata will not change the outcome.
The Automatic Checks, One by One
These are the thresholds published in the contributor documentation. Every one of them can be verified on your own machine before a single byte is uploaded.
Format Has to Be EPS or JPEG, and Be Readable as Such
The documentation is blunt about this: a file is invalid if it is not an EPS or a JPG, or if it is saved as one but the system does not recognise it as such. That second clause catches more contributors than the first. A PNG renamed to .jpg, a JPEG written by an unusual encoder, or a variant a parsing library cannot read will all register as format failures even though the file opens perfectly on your desktop. Re-exporting from a mainstream editor, rather than renaming, is the fix.
Dimensions Must Sit Between 2,000 and 10,000 Pixels
Both vectors and photos must measure at least 2,000 pixels and at most 10,000 pixels in their dimensions. The upper bound surprises people more than the lower one - large panoramic stitches and oversized vector exports routinely overshoot it. Downsampling a 12,000-pixel panorama to fit is a legitimate fix and costs nothing a buyer will ever notice.
File Size Has a Floor as Well as a Ceiling
The maximum is 80 MB for both vectors and photos. The minimum is where batches quietly fail: vectors need at least 0.5 MB, while photos and PSD files each need at least 1.5 MB. Aggressive JPEG compression is the usual culprit. An image that clears the pixel dimensions can still fall under the size floor if it was exported at a low quality setting, and nothing in the preview will warn you.
EPS Files Need a Matching Preview
An EPS submitted without a preview joined to it is refused, and the preview must carry the same name as the file. This is a packaging step rather than a design one, which is exactly why it goes missing when a vector is exported by a script or moved between machines mid-project.
Duplicates, Including Your Own Earlier Work
Assets with identical content or repetitions are refused, and so is anything previously submitted. The documentation makes no exception for files that were rejected the first time around. Contributors who keep a working archive and periodically re-run it through an uploader are the most exposed, because the tool has no memory of what already went out. A delivery log per agency is the cheap defence, and the same discipline prevents duplicate uploads across agencies generally.
Corrupted Files
A file damaged in transit, or corrupted before it left your machine, is rejected as unreadable. Interrupted FTP sessions are the common cause, and the fix is transfer-level rather than creative: verify the byte count on the far side and re-send anything that does not match.
Missing Metadata Starts a Ten-Day Clock
A file that arrives without metadata is not refused outright. It is flagged, and you have ten days to supply the missing title and keywords before the rejection becomes final. That window is generous, but it only helps if someone is watching the contributor panel. Batches uploaded and forgotten expire quietly. The full field reference for Freepik metadata covers where each value has to live.
What Reviewers Reject That Machines Cannot
Once a file clears the automatic gate, a person looks at it. The recurring reasons for refusal at this stage are about originality and rights rather than specification.
- Excessive similarity - images that closely resemble others you have submitted, or work already published with comparable composition, framing, main elements or motifs.
- Malformations and weak texture - anatomy that does not resolve, flat or low-detail surfaces, artefacts that survive at full size.
- Rights problems - recognisable logos, brands, protected characters or trademarked designs appearing without clearance.
- Content policy - anything that contains or promotes inappropriate behaviour, including political offence, explicit sexual content, drug use or the promotion of violence.
Similarity is the call that most often reads as unfair. It helps to remember that the reviewer is comparing against the whole library rather than only your portfolio, and that twenty frames from one setup will usually be read as one asset with nineteen variants. Curating down to the three strongest frames before upload costs you nothing and removes the argument entirely.
AI-Generated Work Has Its Own Failure Modes
AI content is accepted, but it has to be declared. You can mark it in the uploads section with the dedicated button, or include the keyword _ai_generated in the CSV. For EPS and PSD files the requirement is absolute: whether they are fully generated or merely contain AI elements, they must always be tagged as created by AI. Putting the words AI generated in the title is optional. Tagging is not, and improperly tagged resources are named as a rejection trigger in their own right.
Two quality rules follow. Images must be free of malformations, flat or low-detail texturing, excessive similarity and repetition produced by running the same prompt over and over - which is precisely what a productive generation session yields if you do not curate afterwards. Vector illustrations must also be genuinely editable: every component individually selectable, with no live-trace effect and no segmentation into fragments. The wider picture of metadata rules for generative AI images differs by agency, so a single declaration habit will not satisfy all of them.
Video Sits Inside a Narrow Technical Band
Video has its own published thresholds, and they are tighter than most contributors expect. A clip that plays fine in an editor can still fall outside every one of them.
- Duration between 2 seconds and 2 minutes.
- Frame rate between 23 and 240 fps.
- Width and height each between 720 px and 4096 px.
- Aspect ratio 16:9, 9:16, 256:135, 135:256 or 1:1.
- File size between 1 byte and 5 GB.
- For templates, a preview named preview.mp4 or preview.mov placed directly in the root of the ZIP, encoded as H.264 or ProRes.
Filenames are policed too. A name containing any of the characters hash, percent, ampersand, curly braces, backslash, angle bracket, asterisk, question mark, dollar, exclamation, apostrophe, quotation mark, colon, at sign, plus, backtick, pipe or equals will fail the filename check - awkward if your convention uses any of them. Settling on a safe file naming scheme at export time is easier than renaming a delivered batch.
Fix the Batch, Not the File
Nearly every automatic trigger above is a property of how you export, not of the individual image. That makes them worth solving once at the pipeline level rather than one rejection at a time.
- Build an export preset that clears the 2,000 px floor, stays under 10,000 px, and uses a quality setting that keeps photos above 1.5 MB.
- Embed the title and keywords into the file itself, or generate the CSV alongside the batch, before anything is transferred.
- Run a duplicate check against what you have already delivered to each agency, not only against the current folder.
- Tag AI work at the point of export, so the declaration is never a separate step that someone forgets at two in the morning.
This is also where multi-agency delivery earns its keep. The same metadata and the same pre-flight rules can be applied once and then mapped to each destination, instead of being re-checked by hand for every platform you send to. The thresholds differ; the discipline does not.
Where the Documentation Lives Now
Follow a Freepik contributor support link today and it redirects to a page branded Magnific. The company moved its AI products, and the contributor documentation with them, under that name. The thresholds quoted above come from those current pages. The rules themselves did not change in the move, but bookmarks did, and secondhand guides written before the rebrand are the main reason outdated numbers keep resurfacing in contributor forums. If the rename left you uncertain about the platform generally, that is a separate question worth answering on its own terms.
When rejections start eating your upload time, the useful question is not which file failed but which gate it failed at. Rastock AI writes agency-compliant metadata and delivers over FTP to 10+ agencies with per-file status, so a format or metadata failure surfaces before the batch leaves your machine rather than a week later in a rejection notice. There is a 14-day free trial, and no card is required to start.
Frequently asked questions
Why was my Freepik upload rejected before anyone reviewed it?
Because it failed the automatic layer. Format, dimensions, file size, EPS preview, duplication and file integrity are all checked at upload against fixed thresholds, with no human judgement involved. A file outside any of those bands is refused before a moderator ever opens it, which is why the rejection can arrive within minutes of the transfer finishing.
What dimensions and file sizes does Freepik accept?
Both vectors and photos must measure between 2,000 and 10,000 pixels in their dimensions, with a maximum file size of 80 MB. There is a floor as well: vectors need at least 0.5 MB, and photos and PSD files each need at least 1.5 MB. Heavy JPEG compression is the usual reason a correctly sized image still fails.
Can I resubmit a file that was rejected the first time?
Not as the same asset. Duplicated content and anything previously submitted is refused, and the documentation draws no exception for files that were rejected earlier. If the rejection was technical, the corrected export is a new file and should be treated as one. If it was a reviewer call on similarity or quality, resubmitting will not change the outcome.
Do I have to label AI-generated images?
Yes. Mark them with the dedicated button in the uploads section, or include the keyword _ai_generated in the CSV. For EPS and PSD files the tag is mandatory whether the file is fully generated or only contains AI elements. Writing AI generated in the title is optional; improperly tagged resources are listed as a rejection trigger.
What happens if I upload files without metadata?
The file is flagged rather than refused outright, and you have ten days to supply the missing title and keywords before the rejection becomes final. The window only helps if you check the contributor panel within it. Batches uploaded and then forgotten expire without any further prompt, so the metadata is safer embedded before transfer.
What are the video limits for contributors?
Clips must run between 2 seconds and 2 minutes, at 23 to 240 fps, with both width and height between 720 px and 4096 px, in one of the accepted aspect ratios: 16:9, 9:16, 256:135, 135:256 or 1:1. File size can reach 5 GB. Template submissions also need a preview.mp4 or preview.mov in the ZIP root, encoded as H.264 or ProRes.