Tired of posting on Instagram from your phone? Wondering how to post on Instagram from your PC or Mac instead?
You’ve come to the right place. Posting on Instagram from your desktop can save you time and offer more flexibility in what you can upload (such as edited videos and images).
And you can do it without having to upload them onto your phone first.
Below we’ve outlined three different ways to post on Instagram from your computer.
How to post on Instagram from your computer
Method 1: How to post on Instagram from your computer using Hootsuite
Method 2: How to post on Instagram from a PC or Mac
Method 3: How to post on Instagram from your computer using Creator Studio
How to post an Instagram Story from desktop
How to post an Instagram carousel post from desktop
How to edit an Instagram post from desktop
Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a fitness influencer used to grow from 0 to 600,000+ followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.
Below, you’ll find ways to post on Instagram from your PC or Mac. We’ll also show you how to post via Hootsuite which works on either operating system.
If you’re more of a visual learner, watch this video from our pals at Hootsuite Labs to see how easy it can be:
You can schedule feed posts, Stories, carousel posts, and Instagram ads with Hootsuite.
The instructions below will walk you through the process of posting to your Instagram feed. We cover Instagram Stories and carousels a little further down in this article.
To post on Instagram from a PC or Mac using Hootsuite, follow these steps:
Alternatively, you can also Schedule for later if you want it to post at a different time. For a quick summary of how to post on Instagram from Hootsuite, watch this video:
Voila! Posting photos and videos to Instagram from PC or Mac is that easy.
Method 2: How to post on Instagram from a PC or MacAs of October 2021, all Instagram users can create and publish feed posts from the browser version of the app.
To post on Instagram from your desktop computer (PC or Mac), follow these simple steps:
A Create new post window will pop up.
And that’s it!
At the moment, only feed posts can be created and published directly from Instagram on desktop. Keep reading to find out how to post Instagram Stories from a PC or Mac computer.
If Instagram is your social network of choice and you don’t mind not having all your social networks in one dashboard, Creator Studio could be a good option for you.
Note that when using Creator Studio, you can post and schedule all types of posts other than Instagram Stories.
How to post on Instagram using Creator Studio:
You can post an Instagram Story from your computer using a third-party social media management tool like Hootsuite. Just follow the steps outlined in this short video:
Or, read our step-by-step article on how to post an Instagram Story from your computer.
If you don’t have Hootsuite, you can post an Instagram Story from your PC or Mac through the following steps:
You’re done! It’s practically the same steps as if you were using the Instagram app on a mobile device.
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With Hootsuite, you can also create and easily publish carousel posts (with up to 10 images or videos) directly to Instagram. Here’s how.
1. Go to Planner and tap New post to launch Compose.
2. Select the Instagram account you want to publish to.
3. Include your caption in the Text box.
4. Go to Media and tap Select files to upload. Select all the images you want to include in your carousel. All selected images should appear under Media.
5. Use the yellow Schedule button to select a date and time to publish your post.
6. Tap Schedule. The post will show up in your Planner at the time you have scheduled it for.
That’s it! Your post will go live on the date and time you selected.
Hootsuite Compose allows you to edit any image directly on your dashboard before you post it. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to edit the image once it’s posted.
Follow these steps to edit:
This brings up Hootsuite Composer’s edit tool. It allows you to customize the aspect ratio of your image to fit practically any social media platform’s image metrics. From the sidebar, you also have the ability to add filters, adjust lighting and focus, add text and stickers, and use the brush too.Voila! You just edited your image from your desktop.
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Instagram is designed for mobile devices. But that doesn’t work for everyone.
So here are some options for posting to Instagram from your computer without using the mobile app.
Instagram is first and foremost designed as a mobile app.
But that doesn’t work for everyone. Maybe you like to edit your photos in something like Lightroom first. Maybe you want to upload photos or videos taken on a camera that’s not your phone. Or maybe you just don’t like typing long captions on your phone and would prefer to use a real keyboard.
Sure, you can email the photos from your computer to your phone, save them on your phone, and then upload them through the official Instagram app. But that’s pretty cumbersome and tedious.
But other options do exist that might work better for some Instagram users, whether you’re using it for social media marketing or sharing photos privately with friends and family.
After years of making it harder than it should be to post on Instagram from a desktop or laptop computer, in late-2021 a new option was enabled on the Instagram.
com desktop website to post directly on Instagram from a computer’s web browser.
So you no longer need to use the tricks such as browser plugins or spoofing user agents to circumvent the old restriction. Because of that, I’ve updated this post to reflect the new method.
But if you prefer the old ways to do it, those will also still work, and some of them include features that aren’t currently available on the Instagram.com website. I have guides on some of those alternative methods:
But here’s an overview of the new functionality for how to post to Instagram from a PC or Mac’s web browser.
Instagram has quietly added a new button to their website. And that new button makes all the difference for what we want to do here: post on Instagram from a desktop or laptop computer rather than a mobile app.
After you log into your account through a web browser, you should see a new + button in the toolbar. (And to be clear, this is just the standard web browser window without resorting to spoofing a mobile user-agent.)
It looks like this:
You’ll then get the magic words:
And, thankfully, they’ve implemented this properly, with the usual feature set.
For example, you can upload multiple photos at once. In this case, I’ve uploaded a series of 10 images for a single post. You can see the left/right arrows on either side, the multi-image icon at bottom right.
You can select the display crop:
You can apply filters:
And make image adjustments:
You can add a caption, tag (click within the image), specify a location, add accessibility ALT information for photos, and turn off comments.
And you’re done!
I like the simplicity of this new method better than the old methods. And I can see myself sharing more photos on Instagram now that there’s less friction going from the photos on my computer to Instagram posts.
There’s no facility to schedule posting. For that, it seems you’ll still need to use one of the social media management services that allow you to schedule posts on Instagram.
This method works on PC and Mac desktops and laptops.
I haven’t tested this yet on a wide range of browsers, but it’s working for me on Chrome, Brave, Safari, and Firefox.
No, there’s no official Instagram desktop app. There are some third-party apps that can interact in various ways with the Instagram service, but none of them has the full feature set of the Instagram mobile app.
No, there’s no official iPad or tablet app for Instagram. You *can* use the mobile app, but it’s not optimized for tablet use and will be low resolution and only in vertical/portrait orientation.
I'm a professional freelance travel photographer based in Washington DC. Seven continents, up mountains, underwater, and a bunch of places in between. My images have appeared in numerous publications, and you can check out some of my travel photography here. More »
June 12, 2020 Likbez Technologies
Social network desktop site does not allow posting. But there are workarounds.
You can open the mobile version of the Instagram* website on your computer and create stories and posts there, just like in the official app.
How to do this - we show on the example of Chrome, but in most other browsers the steps will be similar.
Go to the Instagram* website and log in to your account.
Open developer tools. To do this, press Shift + Ctrl + I or right-click on the page and select View Code (or a line with a similar name).
On the toolbar that opens, find the icon with a schematic representation of multiple monitors or mobile devices and click on it. If you can't find it, press Shift + Ctrl + M. One way or another, the browser should launch the site in mobile mode.
Customize the size of the Instagram* interface that is convenient for you using the buttons above the site window.
Refresh the page. After that, a publish button will appear and you can use the social network on a PC in the same way as on a smartphone.
Last year, Facebook* launched a dedicated Creator Studio section.
It allows you to publish and even schedule posts on Instagram*. You can't create stories yet.
To work with Creator Studio, you need to switch your Instagram* account to a professional one (creator profile or business account). To do this, go to the settings of the Instagram* mobile app, select "Account" → "Switch to a professional account" and follow the prompts. The procedure will take you a couple of minutes. If you don’t like something, you can return to the usual account type at any time.
In addition, you must link your profile to a Facebook page*. To do this, click the Edit (iOS) or Edit Profile (Android) button on your account page in the Instagram* app. Select "Page" and connect your new Facebook* page using system prompts.
Now open Creator Studio on your computer browser, select the Instagram* icon at the top and log in with your account.
To make a post, on the left panel, click the Create a post button and select Instagram* Feed.
Add a photo or video using the Add Content button.
Click the arrow next to Publish and select the appropriate option: Publish Now (publish now) or Plan (schedule). In the second case, you can specify the time at which the service will publish the post automatically.
Emulators are special programs that allow you to run any Android application directly on your computer. By launching the official Instagram* mobile client this way, you can easily publish Stories and posts. You don't need an Android device for this.
Install any free emulator from Lifehacker's selection for Windows, Linux and macOS. In the screenshot example, you can see a window with the NoxPlayer interface.
Launch the emulator and enter the Google Play app store through it by clicking on the corresponding icon. Connect your old or create a new Google account to be able to download Android apps.
Download Instagram* from Google Play directly in the emulator and log into your profile. After that, you can publish videos and pictures from your computer as if you were using the social network on your smartphone.
See also
*Meta Platforms Inc. activity. and its social networks Facebook and Instagram are prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation.
Continuation of the story from
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Stories
Veronica Elkina
Ex-Story Editor
Polina Todorova
The Instagram social network has always focused primarily on mobile applications.
Yes, you can view your feed from a PC or Mac, but your options there are limited. You can like photos, follow people, but you can't upload your own pictures and videos.
There are several ways to post photos to Instagram from your computer, from dedicated apps to plug-ins for Adobe Lightroom. But now it can be done much easier.
Polina Todorova
Instagram added the ability to publish photos to the mobile version of the site (this version is seen by the user if he enters the social network through a browser, and not through the application itself). The new feature is just one part of the big changes coming to the mobile version of the site. All of them will be made to facilitate access to Instagram in countries with severe restrictions on Internet bandwidth.
Related content:
38 Instagram tricks not everyone knows about
Instagram stories: how to start thinking about content and make it work for you?
How to run a commercial Instagram: instructions with examples from an SMM specialist
To post photos to Instagram from a computer, you need to install a Chrome extension that will allow you to open the mobile version of the social network on a PC or Mac.
Install the extension, select your device type (iOS or Android) from the menu, and go to Instagram.com. You will see a mobile version of the site with a button to upload photos.
This is what it will look like:
However, the functionality of the mobile version of the site is somewhat limited compared to the application. So far, videos cannot be uploaded through the site, and filters, photo editing mode, geolocation tracking do not work here, and it is impossible to publish a series of photos in one post.
But still this method works. If you suddenly need to urgently post a photo on Instagram from your computer, it will be easier to use this technique than to first transfer the picture to your phone and then publish it from it.
The extension modifies the user-agent string. This line is a kind of calling card used by browsers. It tells the site information about which device the browser is running on, and the browser, in turn, adapts to this device.
The extension makes the site think that you have opened Instagram from a mobile device and not from a computer.
Source.
Related materials:
How to save Instagram photos without taking a screenshot
How to get followers on Instagram
Instagram allows you to save live broadcasts to your phone memory
How to make money from celebrity animals on Instagram
How to get a loyal audience on Instagram: success stories of three brands
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