Instagram is one of the most popular social networks around where you can share your videos and photos with your family, friends and the followers who follow every post that you share on Instagram. The app for this wonderful platform isn’t just limited to tablets or phones and you can very much use it on your Mac as well. But the question is what your best way to use Instagram on Mac is.
Well, there are a few options that you can look into and we have described them all here for you.
Jump To Section:
- The Best Way To Use Instagram On Mac – Use Safari For Uploading Photos
- Use Third-Party Apps For Uploading Photos On Instagram
- How To Use Emulators For Uploading Photos On Instagram
The Best Way To Use Instagram On Mac – Use Safari For Uploading Photos
Even though Instagram has been designed for mobile devices but the desktop website also allows you to view photos, like them and share your comments on them. You can visit www.instagram.com for logging into your Instagram account.
However, you cannot upload videos or photos from here – or not at the first glance at least. It is possible that you make Instagram think that you are using the site on your iPhone and add photos thereafter. Here is how you can do that.
- Launch Safari on your Mac
- Go to Advanced tab in Preferences and ensure that Show Develop Menu is toggled on in the menu Bar
- Open Instagram website from there and login to your personal account
- Now browse to Develop>User Agent>Safari-iOS 10-iPhone.
(Once you do so, the site will reload automatically and will now display in its mobile version. You will now have access to upload functionality of the site as well.)
- Now click on Camera icon and browse and select your desired image on the browse prompt.
(It will show image preview with some of the basic options for editing.)
- Click next after editing the image to your liking
- Add caption as you like
- Share it to the masses
One thing that must be mentioned here is that this option will only let you to share photos and not videos. Besides, you will not be able to access advanced editing features and the amazing filters offered by Instagram to its users. Though a big setback, but you may still figure out how to work things around.
Use Third-Party Apps For Uploading Photos On Instagram
If you don’t want to use the Safari method then there are quite a few third-party applications that you may be able to find on Mac App Store which allow you to do a lot of different things related to Instagram. For instance, you’ll be able to get access to your Instagram feed and check all your notifications as well. Let’s take a look at the top three options you have here.
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Flume
If you have ever tried the official app from Twitter for Mac then you will have a pretty much good idea of how this app works. It comes as a thin and tall window which hangs out till you choose to check the feed. You have a heavily image-focused interface but there aren’t many options available for displaying additional information and you need to click the image for that.
But still, it is a great app that allows you to check your Instagram feed and nicely displays all the content without obstructing any other apps. There are hidden menus that give you an intuitive and clean experience. The pro version of Flume app even allows you to use several Instagram accounts as well.
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Go For Instagram
If you’ve always praised web interface of Instagram and just want to access it without having to pull up new tabs, you should probably opt for the Go For Instagram app. The app is more like a wrapper on the web client for Instagram and the layout will not be much of a hassle for you. It is actually the best option available to those who like to have a way for pulling up their Instagram fairly quickly after every few minutes without having to open new tabs.
The app comes accomplished with menu bar icon and keyboard shortcut. You just need to click that shortcut or menu bar icon and your Instagram will be right there in front of you. The app doesn’t offer any upload functionality or support for multiple accounts, however. And, the free app will mean that you’ll get to see some adverts every now and then. That could be a bit annoying, but if you can handle that then it’s a very good app to have on your Mac for accessing Instagram.
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Uplet
Though the app does not allow you to get the native Instagram feed experience, it still comes with features that may be of interest to many power-users of Instagram. It’s a simple app that can be downloaded from the App Store and lets users to drag/drop photos and videos as well as upload them in bulk to Instagram within few seconds. In fact, there is a lot more to this app than this.
It allows you to edit all your photos and videos just like you do on the Instagram app. You can also add captions to your photos individually as well. The app also comes equipped with a handy crop feature as well with which the users can upload their photos the way they like. Though not the feature any casual user will want to have, the die-hard Instagrammers can upload several posts at a time with this feature.
The only thing it lags behind on is that it doesn’t let you enjoy the option of multi-photo posts. But hopefully that support will also be available soon as well.
How To Use Emulators For Uploading Photos On Instagram
Emulators are also a good option to try for uploading photos on Instagram. A very consistent option, which can be trusted as well, is the Bluestacksemulator. It is an Android emulator available for free.
Download the emulator and after downloading you will have to setup emulated Android device. And for that, you will need to have a Bluestacks and Google account, and both these accounts should within Bluestacks. After that, you’ll be able to use your Android emulator for navigating to Play Store (the Android equivalent for Mac App Store) and from there you can download Instagram on your Mac.
Once you have your Instagram right there, you can use it the same way like you do on any mobile device. You will be able to upload your photos and won’t be forced to upload them from a mobile device anymore.
These are the options that you can try for having Instagram on your Mac. Now, it’s up to you to decide which one of these is the best way to use Instagram on Mac for you. You can weigh your options and decide which of these methods suits you the most.