Instagram
The most capable connector. Publishing, metrics, DM automations and the Engage inbox all run on it.
| Connect | One-click OAuth |
| Post kinds | image, carousel, reel |
| Caption limit | 2,200 |
| Max media | 10 |
| Media required | Yes |
| Video | Up to 315 MB, 3s to 15 min, mp4 or mov, h264 and aac |
Before you start
Your Instagram account must be a Business or Creator account. A personal account cannot be connected.
You do not need a Facebook Page. Postlyra uses Instagram Login rather than the older Page-linked flow.
Connect
Settings, then Connections, then Instagram. You approve on Instagram's own Business Login dialog and come back connected: no token to generate or paste by hand.
Credentials are stored per brand and encrypted. They never live in a config file, because one token in a config file would apply to every brand at once.
Token upkeep is automatic
The token expires after 60 days. Postlyra refreshes it on a schedule and writes the new one back, so it does not lapse. You do not have to do anything.
If a refresh is definitively rejected, the connection is marked needs reauth and you get a notification. Reconnect from the same page.
Publishing
Instagram requires media as a public HTTPS URL, which is why approved images upload to a public CDN bucket before publishing. See the warning in Media.
Carousels render to JPEG, 1080 by 1350 by default; a template can switch to a 1080 by 1080 square instead. Feed images must sit between 4:5 and 1.91:1, and both sizes satisfy that.
A post with only text still publishes here: its words are rendered as a picture through a text card template, signed with your Instagram account's photo, name and handle (or an identity you pick). The composer shows the card in the Instagram preview the moment you pick the channel, and every other channel on the same post keeps the text as text. See Text cards.
Metrics
Instagram post metrics sync nightly through the Graph API, along with follower counts. It is the one platform that also reports profile views. Nothing to import, nothing to configure.
Inbox and automations
Instagram's DMs, story replies and story mentions arrive in your Inbox as they happen. Comments on your posts, and replies to them, are read on a schedule instead: Postlyra checks your 25 most recent posts every few minutes for anything new, skipping hidden comments. Answer a comment from the Inbox and the reply lands under it (Instagram threads comments one level deep, so a reply to a reply lands under the original comment, not under the reply). Postlyra sends your text exactly as you typed it, so it never adds an @handle for you.
A reply you post from Instagram's own app is picked up too: it shows up in the thread as your reply, and the Reply score counts the comment as answered.
If someone both comments on your posts and sends you a DM, they can show up as one conversation or as two, one private and one public, depending on how Instagram identifies them across the two.
Keyword-triggered DM automations are Instagram-only.
Meta's 24 hour window is for DMs only
You can reply to a DM only within 24 hours of the person's last message to you. This is Meta's rule and it is enforced server side. The 7 day human-agent extension is not available yet. A comment has no such window: answer it whenever you like.
What limits live delivery
DMs, story replies and story mentions arrive the moment Meta delivers the webhook, and Meta only delivers webhooks to an app it has reviewed. This is Meta's gate, not a switch in Postlyra. Comments do not depend on it: they are read on a schedule instead, so they arrive either way.
Outside production, an automation match is recorded as logged rather than sent: see Automations.
Other people's Instagram posts
The Instagram connection is your own account: publishing, metrics, DMs. Postlyra does not read other people's Instagram accounts and does not search Instagram.
To study someone else's post, save it into Inspiration: with the Chrome extension while you scroll Instagram, from the phone's share sheet, or by pasting its link. Instagram hides most posts from a plain visitor, so a pasted link often saves only the link. The extension and the share sheet save the full post, and the extension is the one that ranks a feed for outliers as you scroll. An Instagram profile grid publishes no per-post numbers, so those posts cannot be ranked. The feed and Reels tab can.