Free Instagram Tools

Which tool to use

All four are free, work without an account, and run in your browser. None of them connects to Instagram, so you never need to share a login.

Hashtag Generator

Best for: you know what the post is about and want a solid set of tags quickly.

Type a topic, such as "home workout", "latte art" or "wedding photography", and the generator matches it to our curated niches. It then builds a set from roughly one broad, two mid-sized and two niche tags. That mix suits Instagram's five-hashtag limit: one tag places the post in its category, and the rest describe what makes it specific.

It only draws from tags we've reviewed, and it automatically leaves out everything in our restricted and spam datasets. The trade-off is coverage. If your topic isn't one of our niches, the results will be broader, and it's worth refining the set by hand with our hashtag research guide.

Banned Hashtag Checker

Best for: tags you found somewhere else, such as a competitor's post, an old saved list or another tool.

Paste a list of tags into the checker and it flags two kinds of problem. Reported restricted tags have been widely reported as hidden or limited on Instagram. Spam tags, like #followforfollow, invite bots and waste a slot. Instagram doesn't publish an official list, so treat a flag as a prompt to check the tag in the app. The page explains exactly how to do that, and what to do if you've already posted with one.

Caption & Hashtag Counter

Best for: long captions, scheduled posts and bios.

Paste your text into the counter to see the character count against Instagram's 2,200-character caption limit and the number of hashtags against the five-tag cap. The guide on that page lists the other limits, including bios, names, usernames, comments and DMs. It also explains why emoji and line breaks can use up more space than you'd expect.

Use it before you schedule a post. Third-party schedulers can reject or fail to publish captions that break a limit, and you may not notice until the post is missing.

Hashtag Directory

Best for: planning a batch of posts, or when you want to see the reasoning behind each tag.

The directory has about 100 niche pages grouped by theme. Each page includes:

• six ready-made Instagram sets for different post types
• two TikTok sets and one YouTube Shorts set
• the full broad, mid and niche tag pools
• tags to avoid, with reasons, plus caption ideas

Popular starting points include travel hashtags, food hashtags, fitness hashtags and small business hashtags.

A simple workflow

1. Generate or pick a set. Start from the generator, or from a directory set that matches your post type.
2. Adjust for your post. Swap in a location, product or community tag that only applies to you.
3. Check anything new. Run tags you added yourself through the banned hashtag checker.
4. Write and count. Draft the caption with the hook in the first line, add your five tags at the end, and confirm the length in the counter.

Other platforms work differently

Instagram's five-tag limit doesn't apply everywhere. YouTube shows up to three hashtags from a video's description near the title and ignores all hashtags on a video with more than 60. TikTok hashtags work best when they describe the topic and format of the video. Use the platform sets in the generator and directory, and read the TikTok hashtags guide and YouTube hashtags guide before copying an Instagram set across.

Guides that go with the tools

• How many hashtags to use: the five-tag limit, and how to split your slots.
• How to research Instagram hashtags: finding niche tags by hand.
• How to search Instagram hashtags, posts and accounts: using Instagram's search to vet tags.
• Best hashtag generator tools compared: how other tools stack up, and which to avoid.
• How to get on the Explore page: where hashtags fit into recommendations.

More strategy articles are collected in the hashtag strategy guides. How we choose and review every tag is explained in our methodology.

Save what you find

Any set on this site can be saved with the Save button, including selections you build yourself. Saved sets live in your own browser — no account, nothing sent to us — and you can rename, copy, export or delete them on the saved sets page.