Editor’s note: On September 3, 2025, the Instagram for iPad app was officially released. This article was originally created long before the app’s release.
Instagram launched in the summer of 2010, which Apple fans remember as the year of the first iPad. But if the two things seemed destined to work beautifully together–an intuitive tablet with a big sharp screen, and a massively popular social network focused on photos and short videos–then that destiny was thwarted. Even now, like WhatsApp, Instagram doesn’t offer an official version for the iPad.
Instagram’s iPad-phobia appears to be lessening, with a report in April 2025 indicating that the company is finally building an iPad app in response to TikTok’s political difficulties in the U.S. But we have no idea how long that’s going to take, if it happens at all. What should iPad owners do in the meantime?
Fear not! There are workarounds, and it’s possible to access and post to Instagram from your iPad, even without a dedicated app, if you know what you’re doing. In this article we show how to get Instagram on your iPad, either by using the iPhone app or by accessing it via a web browser. For related advice, see How to use Instagram on Mac.
Why isn’t there an Instagram app for iPad?
It just doesn’t seem to have been a priority. In 2020, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company had “lots to do” and not enough staff to accomplish them. In 2022, he said there weren’t enough users demanding an iPad app for it to be a priority. It’s an odd omission, for sure.
How to download Instagram’s iPhone app on your iPad
Our problem is that Instagram doesn’t have an iPad app. But here’s a secret: you can run iPhone apps on your iPad. Instagram’s iPhone app won’t be optimized for the iPad, of course, but it’s better than nothing. If you’re reading this on your iPad you can jump straight to the app listing here. Tap Get or the cloud icon and download it.
If you prefer or need to find it via search, open the App Store on your iPad and tap the magnifying glass icon at the right of the top bar. Tap the search bar and type in Instagram, then hit the Enter key. The correct app should appear with no problems (it works fine in iPadOS 18.3.2), but if you’re running an older version of the operating system you may need to tap Filters > Supports, and change iPad Only to iPhone only.
Using the iPhone app on iPad
Apps that are designed to be iPhone-only tend to be a pain to use on iPad, as we discuss in How to get iPhone apps on iPad.
In terms of how the app displays on the iPad’s larger screen, you have two options. It can display in a mini iPhone-sized window in the middle of the screen, or it can blow that window up to iPad size, which may be slightly grainy or pixellated. Use the arrows button at the bottom right to toggle between the two and find the one you like best.
David Price / Foundry
Browse Instagram via a web browser
The iPhone app provides a suboptimal experience on iPad, as we’ve seen. So a better option is probably to treat Instagram as a normal website and browse it via Safari or another web browser.
In Safari, go to Instagram.com and enter your login details. You’ll now be able to use Instagram as normal.
David Price / Foundry
To be honest we find the site perfectly usable on iPad and we can live without a dedicated app for that reason. We hope you can too.
Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld
David has been writing about technology for well over two decades, and got on board the Apple hype train when covering the original iPhone launch in 2007. He is an enthusiastic Apple Watch evangelist and feels that the HomePod is misunderstood.