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Six. Two or three reads as a bot or a throwaway account and gets passed over accordingly; more than seven and your weakest photo drags the set down, because people judge closer to the worst photo than the best.
If you only have four good photos, use four. Padding the set with two weak ones costs more than it adds.
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It is a swipe-first app with no prompt to rescue a weak lead. Your card often gets under a second, so photo one is doing nearly all the work and the rest only matter to people who already paused.
That makes it the highest-leverage thing to test, and Tinder's volume means you get an answer within days. If you change only one thing this month, change this.
One clear face shot in good light. One full body. One doing something you actually do. One social where you are still obviously the subject. Two for variety - different setting, clothes, season.
Six near-identical photos count as one photo. Variety is what lets someone picture you outside a single afternoon.
For the activity shot, pick something genuine and specific: you at a pottery wheel, on a bike, or behind the grill at a friend's barbecue. A generic photo in front of a famous landmark says less, because so many profiles have the same one.
Lead with the clear face shot, then the full body, then the activity. Put the social photo in the middle, never first, so nobody has to work out which person is you.
End on something that gives a match a question to ask, such as you at a cooking class or halfway up a climb. Someone who has scrolled that far is already interested, so give them a reason to act.
Group shot first. Sunglasses first. Mirror and car selfies. Dog with no you in frame. Anything more than about two years old.
Each of these either hides your face, says nothing about your life, or sets up a mismatch with the person who turns up to the date. If one of your six falls into this list, replacing it is a quicker win than adding a seventh.
Your bio is read mostly by people the photos already persuaded, so it does not need to sell you. One or two lines that state intent and give a hook - 'Looking for something real. Ask me about the worst hike I have ever planned' - are enough. That turns a pause into a match and a match into a first message.
Swap only the lead photo, leave it for about a week, and compare matches with the week before. One good or bad day is not a result. Tinder does not publish how it ranks profiles, so do not read much into a spike right after a change; judge the whole week, keep the winner, then test the next slot the same way.