Instagram for PC – Post pictures, videos and Search for friends from PC

Would you like to post some photos you’ve taken with your digital camera on Instagram, but the only idea of having to take photos from your computer to the smartphone makes you hive?

From time to time you would like to access Instagram from your PC, so you can view the latest photos posted by your friends and comment on them, but you do not know how?

Do not worry, it’s a breeze!

Instagram offers a Web version of its service that is accessible from any program to browse the Internet and works on any device, even computers. Through this Web version, you can view photos of your friends, comment on them, add them to your favorites and much more.

You can also search for new content, edit your profile and – through a small trick that I’ll show you shortly – even post photos on Instagram from your PC.

Do not you believe it?

So take five minutes of free time and keep reading.

We are going to discover, together, how to use Instagram on the PC and how to take full advantage of the features of its Web version. We will also see how to use the official Instagram app for Windows 10 and how to use some third-party software that allows you to use Instagram from your PC, but now let’s not lose too much in preamble and let’s go to the point!

Below is everything you need to know about how Instagram works on your PC.

Instagram.com

If you want to know how to use Instagram on your PC, all you have to do is connect to the Instagram.com site and click on the Login link located below to log in to your Instagram account.

If you usually log into Instagram using your Facebook account and not a combination of a dedicated username and password, you can log in using the login credentials of the famous social network by clicking on the Login with Facebook button.

If when you connect to Instagram, the site will “recognize” you automatically (since you have already saved the login credentials to Facebook in your browser or you have made previous access to Instagram.com), all you have to do is confirm your identity by pressing the appropriate button and start using the service.

Once accessed, a page will open with the latest photos posted by the users you follow on Instagram and the usual interaction options: the icon of the little heart to add the “like”, the box to read and send the comments and the icon (…) that, if clicked, allows you to embed the selected photo in external sites (through HTML code) or to report any inappropriate content.

To view a larger photo and read the complete list of comments left under it, click on the publication date of the post, top right (eg 16h for a photo published 16 hours ago).

By clicking on the name of the user who posted the photo, you can access his Instagram profile, while clicking on the name of the location where the photo was taken (where present), you can view a list of all recent photos posted on Instagram from that location.

To search for new photos on Instagram you can use the search bar at the top, where you can find user profiles, photos related to a specific hashtag and photos taken in a specific location.

For example, typing Teknologya results will appear that will allow you to find our profile on Instagram ( teknologya ) and photos that have the hashtag #teknologya. Similarly, looking for the name of a city, such as New York, you can find both the photos taken in that location and the photos that contain the hashtag #NewYork.

Another way to look for new photos on Instagram.com is to view the list of suggested profiles, ie a list of users to follow that Instagram automatically prepares for us based on the profiles we already follow.

To view this list, all you have to do is click on the compass icon at the top right.

Once you have viewed the Web page related to the profile of a specific Instagram account, you can start to follow it by pressing the Follow button located below its profile picture and browse all the photos he posted on his account. You also have the opportunity to comment and add them to favorites, after enlarging them by clicking on their thumbnails.

As already mentioned above, the Web version of Instagram also allows you to manage your account and information related to the latter.

By clicking on the icon of the little man at the top right, you can view your Instagram profile, while pressing the  Edit profile button (top right) you can edit all the data related to the latter (name, email, telephone number, etc.).

From the menu for editing the profile, by selecting the options in the left sidebar, you can also change the password of your profile (by clicking on Change password ), manage applications and services associated with your account (by clicking on authorized applications), adjust commenting preferences and expressing your preferences regarding the receipt of informational emails from Instagram ( E-mail and SMS ).

From the same menu you can even deactivate or cancel your account, but I have dealt with this in my tutorial on how to delete Instagram account.

As well as the smartphone app, even the Web version of Instagram allows you to view all the likes, comments and other notifications related to your photos. How?

Simple, by clicking on the heart icon located at the top right and consulting the box that opens.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to view the Stories or direct messages, but if you have a PC equipped with Windows 10 you can easily bypass this limit by installing the official app of Instagram (which I will deal with shortly).

As for the ability to post photos, you must know that the operation is feasible, but without the ability to apply filters to images and officially only on smartphones and tablets.

This means that to take advantage of this feature from a PC, you must first “trick” the Instagram site and make it believe that you are visiting it from a smartphone or tablet. How?

Simple, switch the browser user agent.

If you had never heard of it, the user agent is a string that the browser communicates to the sites that you visit and identifies both the program and the system in use.

Well, by modifying this string, you can “trick” the sites you visit and make them believe they are using a smartphone or a tablet instead of a PC. The operation is very simple to put into practice and is reversible at any time. To learn more and find out in detail how to change the user agent of your browser, follow the instructions below.

• Chrome  – install the User-Agent Switcher extension, open a new browser tab and visit the Instagram site. Then click on the icon of the sheet with the black mask at the top right and select the user agent of a portable device (eg iOS> iPad ) from the menu that opens. To restore the default Chrome user agent (required after using Instagram in mobile mode), select  Chrome> Default from the User-Agent Switcher menu.

• Firefox  – install the User-Agent Switcher extension, open a new browser tab and visit the Instagram site. Then click on the icon of the globe located at the top right, in the box that opens select an icon from the Select section to mobile device (eg the Apple icon or that of Android ) and reload the page. To restore the default Firefox user agent (which is necessary after using Instagram in mobile mode), click the globe icon again and select the check mark at the bottom of the box that opens.

• Edge  – click on the button  (…)  located at the top right and select the item Development Tools from the menu that opens. Select the Emulation tab from the box that appeared below and select the name of a portable device (eg Nokia Lumia 650 ) from the Device drop-down menu. To restore the browser’s default user agent, just open a new tab.

• Safari  – go to the Safari menu > Preferences located at the top left, select the Advanced tab from the window that opens and put the check mark next to the Show Development menu option in the menu bar (at the bottom of the window). Now visit the Instagram site and select one of the Safari – iOS entries from the Development> User agent menu. To restore the browser’s default user agent, just open a new tab.

Now you can proceed with uploading photos from your PC. Then click on the camera icon located at the bottom center of the main Instagram page and select the image you want to post on your profile.

At this point, scroll the page that has been opened up and down and use the icon with the two arrows located on the left to activate or deactivate the image zoom and/or the icon with the two circular arrows located on the right to rotate the photo.

To finish, click on the Next item at the top right, type a description and the hashtags you want to associate with the photo in the text field and click on the Share button to post the image.

Instagram for Windows 10

As already mentioned above, Instagram has released an official app for Windows 10 that allows you to take advantage of all the features of the online version of the service plus Stories and direct. Unfortunately it does not yet allow you to post photos or videos on your profile, but the situation may change soon.

To download Instagram for Windows 10, click on the Windows Start button (the flag icon located in the lower left corner of the screen), search for the term store and start the Windows Store by selecting its icon from the search results. In the window that opens, use the search bar of the Windows Store to find Instagram and proceed to install the app by first pressing on its icon and then on the button Get.

When the download is complete, start the Instagram app by selecting it from the Windows Start menu and logging in to your personal account.

Now you can browse all the photos of the people you follow on the social network, comment on them and add them to favorites just as you usually do on smartphones.

To view Stories and direct, click on the circular photos of the people you follow on Instagram (at the top of the app window) or on the airplane icon (top right).

You can also post new Stories. In this case, all you have to do is click on the icon of the camera located at the top left and use the webcam of your PC to realize your story. By clicking on the appropriate items located at the bottom, you can also create “Boomerang Stories” and “Stories without holding”.

Third-party solutions

The official services and applications of Instagram do not satisfy you?

No problem, there are also third-party solutions that allow you to view and post photos on Instagram. Beware though, because they are not very well seen by those who run the well-known social network photo.

The problem mainly concerns uploading photos. Instagram wants to keep the ability to upload photos an exclusive function of its apps (and its services). To protect this exclusivity, it tends to penalize the profiles of users who use third-party uploaders by deleting the hashtags from the photos (a measure that greatly reduces their visibility) or even suspending the accounts.

Before using third-party solutions to upload photos to Instagram, therefore, think about it very well. You could risk unwanted penalties in your account. Then do not tell me I did not warn you!

Gramblr (Windows / Mac)

Gramblr is a free software which is available for both Windows and MacOS. It allows you to upload images and videos to Instagram by acting directly from your computer. This is an unofficial solution, so it can lead to the penalties mentioned above, use it with caution.

In order to use Instagram on your PC via Gramblr, the first thing you need to do is to download and install the program on your computer. Then connect to the Internet site of the program and press the button Mac OS X or Windows (depending on the operating system you use on your computer) to start downloading the software.

Once you have completed the download procedure, if you are using a Windows PC then open the file gramblr2_win32.zip just obtained, double click on the executable Gramblr.exe in the window that is shown to you and then press the Yes button visible on the screen.

If you are using a Mac, double-click the gramblr2_osx.dmg file you just got, drag the Gramblr icon to the MacOS Applications folder and start the program by right clicking on its icon and selecting the Open item from the menu that appears.

Now, regardless of the operating system you are using, wait for the Gramblr page to open in the Web browser set as default on your computer and then fill in the fields on the Web page shown on the screen so as to create an account to use the program and to provide your Instagram data to Gramblr to upload photos and videos from computers.

Then fill in the Email field by typing your email address, the Password field and the Confirm Password field by typing the password you want to use to register for the service, the Instagram Username field by typing the username you used to log in to Instagram and the Instagram field password typing the password you used to access your Instagram account. To confirm the data entered and to be able to start using Gramblr presses then the green button Sign up placed at the bottom.

In the screen that at this point you will be shown, presses on the item  Upload Now!  visible on the left and then click on the item  Drag and Drop Image or Video. or Click Here to Start and select the image or video you want to share on Instagram directly from your computer.

Alternatively, you can select the photo or video file to be operated on by drag and drop.

Then wait until the file upload is started and completed and then use the section Crop any Shape to edit the image or video using the appropriate commands available. Once the desired final result is achieved, press the Save button on the right.

Wait now that you can access the Apply Some Filters section and then click on the Filters button located on the right side and use the tools visible on the screen to change your shot or your video by applying filters, adjusting saturation, brightness and acting on all the parameters on which it is usually possible to intervene via Instagram from a smartphone.

Once you have obtained the desired final result, click on the Save button. If you do not want to edit the photo, instead of pressing the Filters button attached to the Apply Some Filters section, click Continue.

Finally, fill out the form below the Caption:  attached to the Write a Caption and Send section by typing the photo title or your comment, leave the Immediately option selected and then press the green Send button! to complete the process by using Instagram on the PC to share photos or videos.

After that, the photo or video will be visible on your Instagram account as usual when you share your shots or your movies through the famous smartphone app.

Android Emulators (Windows/Mac)

If you do not want to risk penalizations but you want to post photos on Instagram from PC having all the functions, and therefore all the filters, of the smartphone app, you can resort to an Android emulator , that is software that allows you to emulate Android on your computer and then run the Instagram app for smartphones directly from the PC.

Android emulators are different, both for Windows and MacOS, even free, and allow you to run the Instagram app without any problem. If you want to know more, check out my tutorial on How to install Android on PC.