Launched in 2010, the social media site Instagram has, along with Twitter and Facebook, established itself as a go-to destination for influencers and people with the desire to share various aspects of their daily lives with others. Instagram is steadily approaching the huge milestone of having a billion registered users, but the total number of uploaded photos to the service has been counted in billions for quite some time now.
Since its inception, Instagram has been designed with mobile devices in mind. The service wants its users to capture a photo, apply a visual filter to achieve the desired look, and instantly upload it to Instagram for others to like and share. While most users are happy with this approach, not everyone is. Some Instagram users would like to first edit their photos in a dedicated photo-editing application like Lightroom, and others despise typing out lengthy captions on a virtual keyboard, preferring to use a real keyboard instead.
Regardless of which camp you belong to, this article will teach you how to post on Instagram from Mac, introducing several handy apps that let you upload photos directly from your computer.
Can You Upload to Instagram from Mac?
If you’re wondering if it’s possible to post Instagram from Mac without a third-party app, we have good news for you: it is. But you need to trick the Instagram website into thinking that you’re coming from a mobile device.
Some modern web browsers, such as Chrome, make it possible to change your user agent without installing any extensions, which is by far the easiest way how to make the posting feature available even though you’re on a desktop computer.
That said, using the Instagram website to upload photos from a Mac is much less convenient than either uploading photos from Instagram’s mobile app or using the below-described Mac apps.
Apps That Let You Upload to Instagram from Mac
We have selected top 7 apps intended for users who would like to upload to Instagram from a Mac or manage their Instagram account in a more convenient way.
Flume
Many consider Flume to be the best way how to upload photos to Instagram from Mac, and we can definitely see why. To start with, Flume is available for free, with some restrictions. To enjoy unlimited uploads, multiple accounts, and the good feeling of knowing that you’ve supported the development of an application you rely on every day, you have to pay only $10 for the Pro version. And what can the free version do? It can get statistics about your posts and followers, start conversations with friends, see your latest activity, view photos and videos in their original aspect ratio and at full resolution, understand your international followers, view popular content, and find suggestions of users to follow, and much more.
Uplet
Even though Uplet isn’t a full-fledged alternative to the mobile Instagram app, it still deserves its place on this list. With Uplet, you can easily drag and drop photos and video to upload them in bulk to Instagram, and the app even lets you add individual captions and do basic photo editing. Because Uplet is written in Swift, which is a powerful and intuitive programming language for Mac computers, the app performs flawlessly even on older Macs, making it incredibly easy to upload dozens of pictures to Instagram every day. Recently, Uplet has been updated to support switching between multiple Instagram accounts with a single click without having to re-login each time, making it even better than it was before.
Gramblr
Gramblr is both a desktop application and a web service for uploading photos and videos to Instagram with one click. To use Gramblr, you have to first download and install the provided desktop application, which runs in the background, retrieving selected photos and videos from your Mac computer and uploading them to the web service, which features a suite of image editing tools. Once you’re happy with how your photos look, you can simply click on the “Upload Now!” button, and Gramblr will publish them to your Instagram account. Gramblr is free to download and use, and it’s available on both Mac and Windows.
Grum
Featured on Entrepreneur, Product Hunt, Neil Patel, Sumo, and other websites, Grum is a leading content scheduling service for Instagram. Grum’s purpose is to fully automate Instagram posting, allowing users to upload photos from the desktop and schedule their posting for any day or time. If you just want to share a photo from your computer, Grum might be overkill. But if you’re an influencer, a business owner, or someone whose life revolves around social media, Grum is just what you need.
LR/Instagram
Adobe Lightroom is a popular photo processor and image organizer developed by Adobe for Windows and Mac. Many professional and amateur photographers alike rely on Lightroom to view, organize, and retouch digital images, and, thanks to the LR/Instagram plugin, it’s finally possible to post to Instagram directly from Lightroom. LR/Instagram supports hashtags and captions, multiple accounts, and it can even automatically crop photos to aspect ratios supported by Instagram.
Grids
Available on Windows and Mac, Grids lets you experience Instagram in a brand-new way. The application features a well-designed user interface that looks just as good at widget-size as it does at fullscreen. With Grids, you can upload photos and videos directly from your desktop, view and post stories, start a conversation with friends, switch between multiple accounts, get notifications, like, comment, follow, and explore content from other Instagram users, and more. Grids is available on the Mac App Store for $8.99 and is compatible with all Mac computers running Mac OS X 10.11 or later.
Deskgram
Deskgram is a web application that uses the Instagram API to allow users to upload photos from the desktop directly to Instagram. Because Deskgram runs entirely in the web browser, there’s no need to download any additional software. Photo uploading using Deskgram is accomplished with a simple drag and drop operating, and Deskgram even allows you to add captions and hashtags without using the official Instagram app.