I don’t understand why some applications insist on making their usage on anything but a phone near impossible, but Instagram seems to have decided that you can do just about everything from their desktop version of the site except actually post from it. For a 33-year-old, this is bad news bears because I’m okay with my phone, but my gods do I crave the control of an actual keyboard and a mouse over the finickiness of a touch screen.
Plus, when it comes to Instagram, I need to post book covers and mood boards and quotes for my self publishing presence, not just snapshots of my cats (though there are plenty of those), so I need access to images that aren’t on my computer’s camera roll.
So, here’s how to post to Instagram directly from your desktop!
For this method, you need to be using the Google Chrome browser. Head on over to Instagram.com and up on the brower’s menu, choose the triple dot and go to More tools > Developer tools.
You’ll get the dev window to open up, but you don’t really need that. Instead, focus on the new little bar you get at the top of the browser’s screen and choose one of the mobile versions to view the site. I chose iPhone 5/SE because it’s a bigger screen size, so I can confirm this method works with that choice.
Once you’ve done this, the page will change to look slightly more like the mobile version. Your cursor will become a fuzzy grey dot too to simulate a finger. Click on your profile icon and choose “Log Out.”
And then, I bet you guessed it, but you’re going to log right back in, baybeeee!
Once you’ve logged back in, you will finally see the mobile version with the option to actually add a new post! Click that plus sign at the bottom and you’ll be able to add any image from your desktop and type up your caption for posting!
Sure, it’s a lot of extra steps, but, for me, it’s a buttload quicker than sending the image from my desktop to my phone which usually just super frustrates me. I do this every Wednesday for #1LineWed and for cover reveals and things. Hope it helps you too, and I hope Instagram never updates to the point where this becomes a totally useless “hack.”
So go forth! Post ALL the photos! Also, like, follow me on Instagram, duh!
A.K. Caggiano 
Oh, interesting! I’d been wondering exactly the same thing. (And I’m a good deal older than 33.) I’ll have to try this method out.
Rick
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