Instagram. Ever heard of it? It is the ever-present, popular social media platform to show off your photography to over a billion users. Savvy users may rapidly spread the impact and influence of their images, message, and brand making it a preferred platform for many photographers. Sounds amazing right? So what is the catch? The catch with any social media is that it takes time to curate and post your work which takes time away from other photography tasks. Instagram can exacerbate that because its platform is proprietary to phones and mobile devices making it tedious to post your professionally-edited work from your computer. If you agree with that, I have great news! Bluestacks Android Emulator can access and post to Instagram from your computer.
I want to start this article by saying Bluestacks did not solicit or pay me in any way to do this. When researching for solutions to post to Instagram from your computer, I came across Bluestacks and have been using it for a year. I have written this article from my experience using their software. I review its usage for Instagram, some cons, and some pros.
Safety
One of my main concerns when initially installing Bluestacks was its security. You may be concerned about putting your passwords into it, or that Bluestacks may contain spyware. They guarantee that no spyware or malware is packaged with their software. After doing much searching online, I found the consensus was that Bluestacks was secure overall and that entering your password information for Instagram was no different than entering it into the Instagram app on your phone.
Usage
Booting Up
You can follow the installation steps from Bluestacks to get started. In short :
- Download Bluestacks Emulator from bluestacks.com and run the installer.
- Open up Bluestacks and sign in with your Google Account like you would on your cell phone.
- Open up the Google Play Store and install Instagram. You will be familiar with this as it is the same as your phone’s app store. Note: if you have two-step verification installed for Instagram you will have to temporarily disable it to sign into Instagram on Bluestacks. You can re-enable it once you have signed into Instagram.
Using Instagram
Using Instagram through Bluestacks is simple. Export your images from your editing software. Use Bluestacks’ “Media Manager” to import the image into Bluestacks. This will make the image available for use on Instagram.
Use Bluestacks’ media manager to import your exported image on your computer.
I like to store my exported images in a separate location than the RAW files. Bluestacks remembers this location to make it easy to access the images.
Open up Instagram to make your post. Assuming you already use Instagram, you will go through the same steps you use on your phone. You will appreciate being able to make the post using your keyboard!
To create a post open up Instagram in Bluestacks. Create the post using the same steps you would on your phone.
Thoughts and Review
I hope the steps above demonstrate how easy Bluestacks is to set up and use. After using Bluestacks for a year, I have appreciated the ease in creating posts and responding to users on Instagram. I like knowing I am using my time as efficiently as possible! I’ll break down the pros and cons of Bluestacks as I see them.
Pros
Bluestacks makes it efficient to post your edited photos to Instagram. In contrast to other solutions such as posting from Lightroom, you can interact with all of Instagram’s features and respond to comments and followers. I appreciate knowing I can spend more time photographing and editing with less time spent on social media. I also like using Instagram on a large screen and the ability to type using a keyboard.
One efficiency you should use is storing your common hashtags in a notepad document. You can simply copy and paste them into Instagram in Bluestacks. No more worries about mistyping or missing your most productive hashtags!
I keep a list of commonly used hashtags in a notepad file. This allows me to copy and paste them into my post on Instagram.
Cons
There are some cons to the Bluestacks software that I’ve encountered. First, it is a RAM and graphic-heavy software. You may get speed performance issues with Bluestacks if you have moderately low ram (e.g., 8Gb). This is prevalent when you have multiple programs open eating up lots of RAM on your computer.
Second, there have been some bugs in Bluestacks which I have found workarounds for. I already mentioned the two-step verification bug. Another bug I have encountered is Instagram closes after starting it and will not open again until you reboot the software. This is not common and I’m not sure what triggers it, but you simply need to be aware of it.
Last, Bluestacks is a third-party app. At this time I trust the software’s security and commitment to no malware in their software. However, those terms could change in the future and you should always be conscious of what is contained in software updates.
The Bottom Line
I hope you like the Bluestacks solution and start to use it to improve your social media efficiency so you can spend more time working on your photography! As I always say, “Pixels are cheap.” I hope you make more pixels and spend less time on Instagram thanks to Bluestacks’s efficiencies!
Do you have other solutions that you would like to share? If so, feel free to comment below.
