Any Instagrammer worth their likes is meticulously picky about camera apps and photo editors, but a knockout account takes even more than good photography. With the apps on this list, you can put together creative layouts, see how new photos will look in your feed, add artsy fonts to your stories, turn live photos into videos — in other words, take your Instagram to a whole new level. Some of the apps offer in-app purchases, others will cost you a few dollars to download, but all are worth your while.
So here are the best apps to up your Insta game
Preview: An Instagram theme app
Simply posting great photos doesn’t cut it — you also need a fantastic feed. And if there’s one app that helps you meet impossible Instagram feed goals, it’s Preview. Connect your account, upload the photos you’re planning to post, and then drag them around until you’re happy with the look. That alone is enough to love Preview, but it has even more helpful features like post scheduling, editing, and hashtag research.
CleanMy®Phone: An app for those who have too many pics
Getting the perfect shot can take a dozen tries, especially when it’s someone else behind the camera (shout-out to the boyfriends of Instagram). And while taking tons of pics is part of the fun, finding the one you like in all this mess is a nightmare. CleanMy®Phone makes it easy to find the best shot among several lookalikes and lets you delete all the rest in a few taps with its Organize module. Plus, its Declutter tool helps you get rid of those Insta stories autosaved to your iPhone and clears out duplicates in no time. As a bonus, you can test your internet connection to make sure that nothing keeps you and scrolling apart.
CleanMy®Phone on the App Store
Layout: A native Insta layout app
Sharing a potpourri of moments from last summer or announcing the winning entries in a photo contest — you always have use for layouts on the Gram. In case you didn’t know, Instagram offers its very own Layout, the best Instagram collage app that lets you mix up to 9 photos in various grids. Save the resulting image to your iPhone and post away!
Lumy: A golden hour calculator app
If you ever tried to catch that bridge at sunrise, when it’s floating in the morning mist, or shoot a portrait on the beach in the glowing sunset light, you know it can be tricky to get the timing right. Lumy is a cute magic hour app that shows you the exact times for the sunrise, the sunset, and the golden hour — in your current location and at this time of the year. It works offline, which comes in handy when you’re on the road and planning your day around the lighting.
Word Swag: An Instagram font generator
The variety of Insta fonts in Stories is underwhelming, but with Word Swag you can design full-blown Instagram posters right on your iPhone. The app features over 60 hand-crafted fonts and 22 filters — all easy to apply to either your own photos or some 1.3 million included backgrounds. So whether you want to post an Insta story, a quote, or a birthday card for a friend, you’ll say it with style.
Unfold: An Instagram Story template app
Speaking of Instagram Stories, you don’t have to limit yourself to default layouts either. Unfold has endless minimalist templates that let you combine several photos or videos with headlines and body text. You can export your creation in high resolution and at just the right aspect ratio, so it's super easy to post a story that stands out from the reel of others.
Momento: An app to post live photos on Instagram
You know how sometimes you take a unique live photo only to discover you can't post it anywhere, because social media apps convert them into regular images? With Momento, you can turn a live a photo into a video or a GIF with added music, text, AR effects, and what not. Moreover, you can shoot stop motion videos — the long-loved genre that had a recent comeback.
Whitagram: A white border Instagram app
Using white borders on Instagram photos can completely transform your feed. And while Instagram offers that feature, it’s very limited — all you can do is add or remove the border, with no control over its color or width. Whitagram, however, allows you to add vertical, horizontal, or all-around borders in several colors and of any width you like. Works best for square photos, but portrait and landscape pics have their own charm.
Now you’re all set to achieve those #InstagramFeedGoals! Try out the apps we recommend in this post, and share it with friends, so they, too, can jazz up their Insta feeds.
