Complete Guide to Setup BlueStacks for Instagram Uploads on Windows Desktop

On my free time I do a lot of photography and one of the usual things that I do is post my shots to Instagram. Now my workflow is the usual DSLR RAW shooter workflow. That is copy the huge RAW files from my SD Card, process the files in On1 Photo RAW or other graphics software, save high quality images on my harddrive (synced to cloud) and then lastly upload them to Instagram.

The annoying thing with Instagram is that the Windows app does not allow upload at all, nor the website. Therefore what did then was go to my mobile phone, open OneDrive, download the image then send to Instagram App for upload. That was not very practical. I wanted to be able to upload my images straight away after editing on my high powered desktop.

These days I used Bluestack to run Android on my Windows machine to its native Instagram app and upload my photos. When I first set it up I encountered a whole bunch of issues such as crashes and black screens on instagram app. So today I will share my complete step on the setup so you don’t have to go around and search everywhere for troubleshooting guides and FAQs.

Step 1: Install BlueStacks

1. Install BlueStacks from https://www.bluestacks.com 
   • Scroll all the way to the bottom to Download (https://www.bluestacks.com/download.html)
2. After installing, connect your Google account or just create a new one

Step 2: Configure BlueStacks for Instagram Usage

1. Click on the settings icon (the cog on the top right hand side), then go to Settings
2. Set the Engine configurations to the following:
   • OpenGL
   • User advanced graphic engine mode
   • Set 4 CPU cores (if your CPU supports it)
   • Set Memory to 4096 MB (again, if you have enough ram, if not I think 2040 MB is enough)
   • 
   • Save and restart

Step 3: Install Instagram

1. Search for Instagram under App Center and install the app
   • 
2. Just login to Instagram as usual

Step 4: Copy the Photos to Bluestacks

This is where Bluestacks used to keep crashing for me. Somehow if I follow the usual process of “Import files from Windows” it never worked.

1. Open System app -> Media Manager
   • 
2. Click on Imported Files
3. Open the folder on your local windows files where your images are
4. Drag and drop the files to BlueStacks Windows
   • Clicking on Import for Windows always crashes my BlueStacks (could be different effects on your machine)
   •  
5. Wait for a few moment, your files will be copied.
   • If the image doesn’t appear automatically, just click the Home tab and back to Media Manager

Step 5: Upload to Instagram

1. Open Instagram app
2. Click on the upload icon just like on your phone
3. Your pictures should be automatically displayed and you can upload and edit as usual
   • 

You’ve Got a Workflow!

After the initial setup and upload, it’s pretty easy to rinse and repeat step 4 and 5 to upload more pictures to Instagram.

Hopefully this helps for everyone out there who wants to upload pictures to Instagram directly from their desktops.

Categorised in: Android, Fun computing, General article, General Computing