Upload your pictures from laptop or PC to Instagram

Being a photographer, you are aware of the importance of using social media platforms to share your works with the world. After all, what would be the fun of taking pictures and spending hours on post-processing if no one ever will have a look at them.

Instagram is one of the most popular and ideal photo sharing apps. The downside is that Instagram has been tailored to capture shots taking from your smartphone. However, most photographers – myself included – shoot photos on a dSLR camera and edit them on their PC or laptop before uploading to Instagram or any other social media platform. The traditional upload process required the photographer to transfer the finished photo version to a smartphone, from where it could be posted on Instagram. This way of working was cumbersome and most annoying.

Third-party apps

As a remedy to this problem, a number of third-party desktop tools and applications became available, allowing direct connection between your PC or Mac computer and your Instagram account. Best known are services like Gramblr, Bluestacks or Instapic (a Windows app only working on Windows 8 or higher). However, the use of such services should be strongly discouraged. Lately, Instagram has been very strict with third-party apps and there are many reports of accounts getting shut down because of the use of such third-party apps. And the last thing any photographer wants, is get their account taken away.

The trick to work around

Early May this year, Instagram launched a fully-functional web app allowing the users to upload pictures from a phone browser. But the best part of this is that the new mobile app can also be used on a desktop or laptop. This means you can actually run the mobile app and upload photos right from your computer. This functionality is hidden, but it’s there. You just have to find it... and fool Instagram. Simply brilliant!

As most browsers, also Instagram has a way of letting you change the ‘User Agent’, which is the thing that tells a website what kind of device you are on. So, even when logging on from a laptop of PC, it is possible to trick a website like Instagram, and getting access to the mobile site. And that’s what we are going to do in 5 easy steps.

Step 1. Open Instagram via Google Chrome

On your desktop, or much more likely your laptop head on over to the Instagram website, and log in to your account.

Step 2. Open developer tools

This part is the reason why using Google Chrome is important. When using Safari, the workaround will be completely different, while the trick seems to be impossible to complete when using Internet Explorer.

In Chrome, on the Instagram website, you will need to launch developer tools. To do this, press CTRL+Shift+I together (for Mac users: press Cmd+Shift+C).

Step 3. Access the mobile options

Developer tools has a great feature which lets you view any website as if it were on a smartphone. Ignore all the code. You’re just looking for the conveniently circled mobile devices option above.

Step 4. Turn your browser into an smartphone

Next, at the top of the screen (where that lovely red rectangle is) you’ll likely see the word responsive. Click this and change it to one of the smartphone options, such as the Galaxy S5.

Step 5. Post your photo works on Instagram

Now you can upload a photo and type your caption, right on your computer!

Keep posting,

Ben