How to post images and videos to Instagram on the web

Instagram for iOS is pretty decent, but there are times when you just wanna quickly post an image without having the app unnecessarily eat into that precious cellular data by refreshing feeds and other content. While you can send photos from other iPhone apps via Instagram’s Share sheet extension, it’s now possible to upload images through Safari as well.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions explaining how to upload your photographs to Instagram using the mobile web interface, no apps needed whatsoever.

Before we get to it, know that you cannot take or upload photos from Instagram’s web interface on a desktop computer. Only Instagram’s web UI on mobile lets you do that.

How to post images to Instagram via mobile web

1) On your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, visit instagram.com in Safari, Chrome or another browser of your choice, then log in with Facebook or your Instagram account credentials.

2) Tap the plus sign at the bottom. If you don’t see the tab area at the bottom, try scrolling or reloading the page.

3) A menu pops up with several options allowing you to take a new photo, choose an existing image from your Photos library or browse for one from a cloud-storage service of your choice.

Choose Photo on Instagram mobile web on iPhone

The following two options are always available:

  • Take Photo—Choose this if you’d like to take a photo with your iPhone’s camera. After snapping an image, tap Choose to create a new Instagram post based on it or hit Cancel to discard the image and take a new one.
  • Photo Library—This option will pull up the Photos browser. Navigate your way through the albums, then tap a photo to select it for your post.

As mentioned, you can access other storage services for your photos. Just tap More.

4) Preview your photo to make sure everything looks good, then tap Next to continue.

To rotate the image counter-clockwise, tap the icon in the lower-right corner. You can switch between landscape and portrait orientation for the image with the icon in the lower-left corner.

Rotate Photo on Instagram in Safari on iPhone

To stop creating a new Instagram post, tap the X in the upper-left corner.

5) Write a caption for your image, if you like. You can use #hashtags and @usernames in captions like you normally would.

6) Tap Share in the upper-right corner to finish adding the post and publish it on Instagram.

Instagram’s filters and other creative tools and advanced functions used to be unavailable when posting images through the mobile web interface. However, the web app has since been refresh with new features permitting you to use filters and edit photos and videos in your browser.

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