Fake Instagram Post Generator
A convincing Instagram post mockup for a slide, a portfolio piece or a lesson — exported as a PNG.
For parody, education, and mockups only
Lowercased automatically.
Leave blank to hide the line.
This is a generated image for entertainment purposes.
Everything here runs on your device. Nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.
Enter a username, attach an image, write a caption, and this draws a post that matches the real layout — right down to how the like count is formatted. Switch between light and dark chrome and export a 2x PNG.
How to use it
- Enter a username. It is lowercased and stripped of anything Instagram would not allow, so the result is always a valid handle.
- Add a location line if you want one. Leave it blank and the header collapses to a single row, exactly as it does on a real post without a location.
- Attach the image for the post. It is cover-fitted into the square frame.
- Write the caption. The username renders in bold at the start, and the caption text wraps around it.
- Set likes and comments, choose light or dark, then Download PNG.
Instagram counts likes differently from every other platform
This is the tell that gives away almost every Instagram mockup, and it is worth understanding because it runs opposite to what you might expect.
X abbreviates aggressively and early. A thousand likes becomes 1K, nineteen thousand seven hundred becomes 19.7K. It never shows you a comma-separated number in the engagement row.
Instagram does the reverse. Below ten thousand it shows the exact figure, comma-grouped, in bold, on its own line: 1,247 likes. Not 1.2K. The full number, with the word “likes” spelled out after it. Only once a post passes ten thousand does it switch to abbreviated form, and even then it stays fairly conservative.
So a mockup showing “12.5K likes” on a post that is meant to be from an ordinary account is doubly wrong: wrong format for the number, and it implies a reach the rest of the post does not support. A mockup showing “1.2K likes” is wrong in a way that anyone who opens the app daily will spot in under a second, without being able to articulate why.
The comment line follows its own rule again. Instagram does not show a comment count next to an icon — it shows a text link reading “View all 284 comments”, comma-grouped, in the muted colour, below the caption. That phrasing is part of the layout, not a label this tool invented.
The timestamp is the third detail: uppercase, small, and relative. “3 HOURS AGO”, not “3h” and not a date. All three of these are implemented here.
Light and dark are separate designs
Instagram’s dark mode uses pure black for the background, like X, and for the same OLED reason. But its dividers and muted text sit at different values from X’s, and its accent blue is #0095f6 rather than #1d9bf0 — close enough to look right at a glance, distinct enough to be wrong if you use the other one.
The placeholder that appears before you attach an image also changes: light mode uses a very pale grey, dark mode a near-black grey, matching what the app shows while an image is still loading.
What it does not do
It renders a single square post. Stories, Reels, and the multi-image carousel viewer are not implemented, though the carousel dots are drawn so a mockup can indicate a multi-slide post. It does not fetch anything from Instagram, so it cannot import a real post or check whether a username exists. The fonts are the closest available web equivalents, not the platform’s proprietary faces.
Nothing is uploaded. The canvas is drawn in your browser and the PNG is generated on your device.
How like counts are displayed
| Actual likes | Instagram shows | X would show |
|---|---|---|
| 847 | 847 | 847 |
| 1,247 | 1,247 | 1.2K |
| 9,999 | 9,999 | 9.9K |
| 12,470 | 12.4K | 12.4K |
| 240,000 | 240K | 240K |
Layout measurements
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Post width | 470px |
| Image frame | 1:1 square |
| Avatar | 32px diameter |
| Horizontal padding | 14px |
| Caption size | 14px |
| Timestamp size | 10px, uppercase |
Questions
Why are likes shown in full rather than abbreviated?
Because that is what Instagram does below 10,000. It writes "1,247 likes" with a comma, and only switches to abbreviated form above ten thousand. This is the opposite of X, and it is the single most common mistake in an Instagram mockup.
Can I make a carousel post?
Yes. Set the slide count and the dot indicator appears over the image with the first slide active. The tool renders one image, so it shows the first slide of a carousel rather than letting you page through several.
Is the square crop accurate?
Yes. The frame is 1:1 and your image is cover-fitted and centred, which is what the app does to anything that is not already square. If the crop cuts something important, crop the source first.
Is it legal to use this?
For parody, education, design mockups and satire, yes. Using it to impersonate a real person, deceive, defraud or harass is not. The output is a generated image and is not a real post from anyone.
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