Instagram Is Finally Letting Users Post Content From Desktop

Today kicks off Instagram’s first Product Week, a multi-day (though not actually week-long) series of new feature announcements and drops across the platform’s various components, including its core content feed, TikTok competitor Reels, and Stories.

First among the new features is Collabs, which will enable users to co-create Reels. Users can invite one another to coauthor by going to a Reel’s tagging page, and if the invited user accepts, “both accounts will appear in the post or Reels header, and it will be shared to both sets of followers,” Instagram says.

Engagement generated by both creators’ audiences will be combined: Collabs-made Reels will have one view count, one like count, and a single comment section, just like any other Reel.

Collabs are currently being tested, per Instagram. The company did not specify how many creators have access to them.

The next feature Instagram’s announcing–with more information coming Oct. 20–is a somewhat smaller tweak. It’s adding the ability to create fundraisers for approved nonprofits (something users can already do) as a one-touch option in its “creation button,” the plus sign in the top right corner of its app where users tap to create new content.

Like Collabs, Fundraiser Prompts are currently being tested for implementation across the platform.

And for Product Week’s “grand finale,” Instagram says, it’s fully rolling out three features: two effects generators for Reels; and, at long, long, long last, the ability for users to post content from their desktops, not just from Instagram’s app.

With desktop posting, users will be able to upload photos and videos under one minute in length from any desktop browser. This capability is pushing out to all users globally Oct. 21, and has “long been requested by our IG community,” Instagram says.

As for the Reels effects, one of them, Superbeat, weaves in special visual effects to the tune of videos’ background songs. The other, Dynamic/3D Lyric, displays onscreen lyrics in time with background songs. The goal of both these features is to help creators make their Reels more engaging, and to “spend less time editing and more time creating and sharing,” Instagram says.

Superbeat and Dynamic/3D Lyric are also launching globally Oct. 21.