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You’ll need a touchscreen system to post photos. First, you can’t post photos to your Instagram account if you’re using a standard PC with a mouse and keyboard. Or rather, it’s lack of creativity for the port. Profile: See how others see your profile and it’s where you can make any profile changes to your account.ĭrawbacks to Instagram for Windows have to do with its optimization. Heart: Shows you which posts were liked by people you follow and which of your posts received a like. Unfortunately the Windows UI does not work too well here and the search still brings up every result in a single list format. Search: You can search for people, tags, and places.
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Home: Brings you to the main Instagram feed where each new scroll introduces a new post on which you can like (therefore feeding some algorithm-suggestions about future content you might enjoy), leave a comment, direct message to someone else, or make the post a bookmark. The bottom rung of the interface has the same four icons of a home button, the magnifying glass search button, the heart button, and finally your profile. If you work in the social media field and have to do a lot of DM writing – perhaps you’re selling a product or doing other sorts of outreach – a keyboard is an infinitely better tool for writing than a mobile phone touchscreen. Here is where the PC version shows a strength. The top rung of the app has a camera icon where you can take a snapshot from your webcam, a refresh icon to update your feed, and the DM icon that looks like paper plane. It looks the same as it does on the mobile app.
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Once you’re up and running, the interface will be immediately familiar. It took a minute to find the login option for current users and the designers should have made it clearer. After 80 megabytes of downloading and installation you’re prompted to sign up. You can either go to the website or the store app directly on your Windows PC. Instagram for Windows is available for download from the Microsoft store. Instagram still plays best on phones and but the PC version lets you scratch the IG itch almost as well.
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