It’s no secret that Instagram has slowly taken over the social network paradigm with its media-only approach. Serving over 700 Million users, the Facebook-owned company has added a slew of new features over the past few years. However, the majority of users still never get past the endless feed of pictures on the main screen. Hence, in this article, we walk you through twelve tips and tricks which will significantly augment your Instagram experience.
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Instagram Archives
Instagram recently updated its mobile app with an archiving feature. As expected, it allows you to move your embarrassing old posts to another folder and out of the main profile. While these pictures will still be accessible to you, your friends won’t be able to view them. For archiving a photo, view it and tap the three dots to reveal the option.
Two Factor Authentication
Despite what you believe, Instagram has become a crucial platform for spamming and advertising. Hence, it’s no longer safe to rely only on the password to protect your profile. Hence, the company has included two-factor authentication. To enable it, head into the settings, and there, you will find the respective listing. Click it and follow the forthcoming steps.
Preserve Data
It’s no secret that Instagram is one of the most aggressive apps for emptying your data pack. Fortunately, there’s an option that lets you downgrade the photo and video quality while browsing. Head into settings and look for “cellular data use” in the list. Turn on the “use less data” tweak once you find it.
Block Comments
With a great number of users comes a great amount of spam and offensive content. Luckily, this isn’t Twitter, and Instagram has paid attention to tackling these issues. The app was updated a couple of weeks ago with an AI-powered comment blocker. To turn it on, launch the settings and then comments. Additionally, you can filter out specific keywords by pressing the Add button on top.
Hands-Free Story
Unlike Snapchat, Instagram allows you to record videos by continuously pressing the red button. However, you will have to switch to the “hands-free” mode in the “create story” interface to enable it.
Panoramic Album
After years of existence, Instagram, a few months ago, added support for uploading multiple images. However, you might have noticed that users are posting a single landscape or panorama as a swipeable carousel. Unless you are willing to crop the image manually, there are various third-party apps you can also employ for publishing such posts. On iOS, you can use “Swipeable,” and on Android, “Instaswipe.”
Lux Edit
Instagram might not be your primary photo-editing app. However, it comes with an impressive arsenal of tweaks. One of the lesser-known among these is the Lux slider. It’s present in the middle of the editing options tab as a half-filled-in sun icon and, essentially, fixes over or under-saturated images by automatically adjusting the contrast and saturation.
Add and Reorder Filters
Another feature most Instagram users are unaware of is that the app disables a bunch of filters by default. For adding more, swipe away to the end of the filters list, and you will come across a manage option. Tap that, and you will be able to reorder, hide and, yes, discover some more filters.
Bookmarks and Collections
Instagram now comes with a bookmarking option as well that lets you save posts for later. If you have the most recent version of the app, there will be a little bookmark beneath every picture or video. These bookmarks will be accumulated in the settings under “collections.” There, you can also arrange these into custom collections like “best Paris restaurants” or something.
More Colors in Stories
Unable to locate the color in the story editing screen? Don’t worry; you can use a complete color palette. To access it, tap the pen icon or the “Aa” icon in the upper right-hand corner of the interface. Long press any of the default colors to reveal the color slider.
Hiding Those Ugly Hashtags
Want to be Insta-famous (I apologize for using that) but don’t want your users to see that hideous series of hashtags at the end of a caption? Lucky for you, there’s a workaround for concealing it.
The trick involves copying all the hashtags and posting the image with just the caption. As soon as the post has been published, open the comment section and paste those hashtags as a comment. Now, your followers will only see the “view one comment” under the picture. The post is still visible when someone searches by the hashtag, but not at the expense of your regular followers. You’re welcome.
Fill the Entire Story with a Solid Color
Stories have become a substantial medium for broadcasting an announcement. However, pictures as the backdrop aren’t always convenient to read. Thankfully, you can fill the entire story with a solid color. To do so, tap the pen icon, select a color, and hold on the screen for 1-3 seconds until the screen is filled with a solid color.
That’s it for this article. Do let us know in the comments section if we missed a good Instagram tip.
Related Read: How to do Instagram Image Search