Plain English. No marketing fluff. If something's a known issue or coming soon, it's labeled that way.
It's a desktop app for scheduling and publishing social media posts to Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, Facebook, and YouTube Shorts — from your own computer. No cloud middleman storing your videos, no third-party media server.
We built it because every other scheduler we tried wanted us to upload our 4K video to their cloud first so they could re-upload it to the platform. That's slow, it's a privacy hole, and it caps file sizes way below what the platforms actually accept. Smart Post Studio just talks directly to each platform's API from your machine.
Download from smartpoststudio.com/downloads.html, run the installer, and enter the license key from your welcome email when the app opens.
On a managed Mac, if the installer refuses to open, right-click → Open and confirm once — standard Gatekeeper behaviour for any app outside the App Store.
On Windows you may see a SmartScreen warning the first time — see the next question.
Windows SmartScreen warns about every new Windows app from a small publisher until it builds a reputation from many downloads — or until the publisher pays for an Extended Validation code-signing certificate. Smart Post Studio is brand new; we're in that bootstrap window.
To install: click More info on the warning, then click Run anyway. That's the standard path for any newer Windows app. The warning goes away on subsequent installs for you, and disappears for everyone once SmartScreen has seen enough installs.
If you want the warning gone for everyone immediately, we're getting EV code-signing in place within two weeks of launch — a re-install after that update will use the signed build.
If you're not comfortable bypassing SmartScreen, email support@smartpoststudio.com and we'll wait it out with you.
Both. macOS 12+ (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows 10/11 (x64). Linux isn't supported yet — you can vote for it in the in-app feedback.
Yes — to publish a post. The app talks directly to each platform's API at fire time, so you need an internet connection at that moment. Composing and scheduling work offline.
Go to Accounts in the sidebar, click Connect next to the platform you want, and approve the standard OAuth permissions in your browser. The app stores your authentication token in your operating system's secure keychain — never in any database we control.
Yes. Tokens live in your OS keychain (macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager). Same secure storage your browser uses for saved passwords. They never touch our database. If our servers ever got breached, your TikTok / Instagram / X account credentials wouldn't be in the leak — because we don't have them.
The minimum each platform requires for posting on your behalf:
We don't ask for follower lists, DMs, analytics, or anything we don't strictly need to publish your posts.
Yes, anytime, from the Accounts screen. Disconnecting deletes the local token AND revokes the grant on the platform side (for platforms that support revoke — Google/YouTube does, Meta does, X does). Most schedulers only delete the local token, leaving the grant active on the platform forever. We do both.
Yes — for now. Smart Post Studio is desktop-native, so the scheduler that fires your posts runs on your machine. If your machine is asleep at the scheduled time, the post will fire when you wake it (within a few minutes).
If you want posts to fire while your laptop is closed, leave the app running on a desktop machine or use macOS / Windows sleep settings to wake on schedule. A cloud-relay scheduling option (post-launch) is on the roadmap for people who can't keep a machine on.
Your local time zone — whatever your computer is set to. If you travel and your laptop switches time zones, posts fire at the original wall-clock time in the new zone. Set posts in your audience's local time, not your travel time.
Yes. Go to Queue, click the post, and edit caption, media, schedule, or platforms. Changes save immediately. You can also delete a scheduled post entirely.
The post stays in your queue with a red Failed status and an error message explaining what went wrong (auth expired, file missing, platform rejected the content, etc.). Most common cause is a disconnected account — reconnect in Accounts and re-fire the post.
The scheduler retries network blips automatically (one retry on transient connection errors). Hard failures don't auto-retry — we don't want to spam your audience or burn your platform rate limits.
Yes — that's the main idea. Compose once, tick each platform, schedule. The app fires each platform's post in parallel at the appointed time. If one platform fails, the others still post.
Each platform has its own native cap. Smart Post Studio respects each one rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all middleware cap:
Compare to Buffer, which caps Instagram videos at 100 MB regardless of what Instagram itself accepts. We don't middleware-cap your file size.
No. Your video is sent to each platform exactly as it lives on your disk. No re-encoding, no resolution downgrade, no quality loss before sending. The platform receives your full-quality source — meaning the version your viewers see is as good as that platform allows.
Most schedulers transcode to 720p before forwarding (cheaper for them to store and relay). With Smart Post Studio, a 4K master goes to the platform as a 4K master.
Either it exceeds the specific platform's cap (see sizes above), or it exceeds our 500 MB transit limit for non-YouTube platforms. YouTube has no practical cap from us. For the others, if you're hitting the 500 MB ceiling, compress with HandBrake (free, excellent) and try again.
MP4, MOV, WebM, AVI. MP4 with H.264 is the safest format across all 6 platforms. If you have something exotic, transcode to MP4 first.
Yes for Instagram, Threads, and Facebook (up to 10 images). X supports up to 4. TikTok and YouTube Shorts are video-only.
Right now, TikTok posts land in your phone's TikTok app drafts and require you to manually tap publish. The upload completes, the schedule fires, the video arrives at TikTok — but TikTok holds it in drafts until our app passes TikTok's Direct Post audit.
This is a TikTok policy, not a bug in our app: any third-party app needs explicit TikTok approval before it can publish straight to a creator's feed. We've submitted for the audit (typical turnaround 1–2 weeks). Once approved, TikTok posts will publish directly to your feed at the scheduled time just like the other platforms.
In the meantime, when you schedule a TikTok post, the app will show a banner telling you to publish from your phone.
YouTube uploads go from your machine directly to Google's resumable upload servers. The bytes never touch our infrastructure. This is why YouTube videos have no size limit on our end — you're talking to Google directly, you get Google's 256 GB / 12-hour cap.
Verified by Google Smart Post Studio passed Google's OAuth verification on May 19, 2026 for the youtube.readonly and youtube.upload scopes — no "unverified app" warning, no manual click-through. Connect once and you're posting.
Instagram's API only allows third-party publishing of Reels (vertical 9:16, max 90 seconds). Regular feed videos can't be posted via the API — Meta doesn't allow it. Images post to the regular feed normally.
If your video is horizontal or longer than 90 seconds, it won't post to Instagram. Either reframe it for Reels or skip Instagram for that post.
Facebook's API only allows third-party posting to Pages you own — not your personal profile feed. This is a Meta policy that applies to every social media tool. Connect your Page in Accounts and posts will go to that Page.
X caps captions at 280 characters (or 25,000 for X Premium). If your caption is longer than your X plan supports, the app warns you in the Composer with a "Trim to 280" button. Other platforms post the full caption regardless.
Threads caps captions at 500 characters. We warn if you go over.
On your computer. Videos, images, captions, drafts — all in your local app database and your own file system. We never persist your content on our servers.
The exception is the moment of publishing: for non-YouTube videos, the file briefly transits through a Cloudflare R2 bucket so the platform can fetch it. That object is auto-deleted within seconds of the platform completing its fetch. YouTube videos don't even do this transit — they go directly from your machine to Google.
No. Captions and media never persist on our infrastructure. We don't have a database table called "user_posts" because we don't store posts. The only thing we count is how many requests your account makes per billing cycle — for billing, not content analysis.
Three things, all stored on our infrastructure:
That's it. No captions, no media, no follower data, no analytics on your audience.
Yes. You can request your data export or full deletion at any time by emailing privacy@smartpoststudio.com. Because we store so little, the export is short — your email, your plan, a count of requests per month.
One product, three billing periods. Same features on every plan — no "starter / pro / enterprise" tiers, no feature paywalls.
All 6 platforms. AI Writing Studio. Visual calendar. Direct desktop publishing. Local data. Mac & Windows.
7 days, every plan, no credit card required to start. If you joined the waitlist before launch, your first month is also free — check the email we sent you.
Yes. Cancel from your account settings — you keep access until the end of your current billing period, then it stops. No "talk to sales to cancel" routine.
30-day money-back guarantee on every plan. If it's not working for you, email billing@smartpoststudio.com within 30 days of your first paid charge and we'll refund it. No questions, no hoop-jumping.
Open the failed post in your Queue. The error message tells you what went wrong. Common causes:
Check the post status in the Queue carefully. If it's a TikTok post, it likely landed in your TikTok app drafts (see the TikTok platform note above — Direct Post audit pending). Open the TikTok app on your phone, go to drafts, and tap publish.
For other platforms, Instagram and Threads sometimes take 30–60 seconds to surface a Reel after publish completes. If it still doesn't appear after 5 minutes, check your platform's notification — sometimes the platform rejects after accepting (e.g., for copyrighted audio) and emails you.
The most common cause is browser cookie isolation. Make sure you're logged into the platform's website in the same browser the OAuth flow opened. For Instagram specifically, you need a Business or Creator account (not a personal account) and it needs to be linked to a Facebook Page you own. Meta's API doesn't allow third-party publishing to personal Instagram accounts.
If the app wasn't running at the scheduled time, the post fires within a minute or two of you reopening the app. Our scheduler has an orphan-recovery routine that picks up any missed posts. If the post is still showing as Scheduled after the app has been open for 5 minutes past the fire time, file a support email — that's a bug we want to know about.
We'd rather tell you up front than have you find these on your own. All resolutions are in progress.
Covered above. TikTok requires their Direct Post audit before any third-party app can publish directly to your feed. We've submitted; typical turnaround 1–2 weeks. When it clears, TikTok posts will publish straight to the feed at the scheduled time.
Right now videos for Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Facebook, and X cap at 500 MB total transit size. That's well above each platform's own caption-on Reels limit anyway, but Facebook accepts up to 10 GB videos and we can't take advantage of that yet. Lifting this requires migrating those 5 platforms to direct-upload (the pattern YouTube already uses). On the roadmap for the next minor release.
Mac and Windows only at launch. Linux is on the wishlist — vote for it in the in-app feedback. We need enough demand to justify the build / signing pipeline cost.
Today the scheduler is desktop-only — if your machine is asleep, posts wait. We're working on an optional cloud-relay scheduling add-on for users who want fire-and-forget reliability without leaving a machine on. Coming as a paid add-on post-launch.
Direction we're committed to. Timing approximate, sequence may shuffle based on what users ask for most.
Audit submitted. Once TikTok approves, posts will publish straight to your feed at the scheduled time. No code change needed on your side — the auto-fallback to drafts just stops triggering.
LinkedIn personal profile + Company Page posting. LinkedIn's API is well-documented and gives us a clean integration path. Expecting v1.1 in early June.
Fanvue creator publishing for adult-creator users. Currently in development behind a feature flag.
Optional add-on (a few dollars/month) that mirrors your queue to our scheduler so posts fire even when your machine is off. Your tokens still live in your keychain; the cloud only knows the scheduled time and which platforms to fire to. Bytes still transit at fire time from wherever you've stored them.
Per-post performance pulled live from each platform's analytics API. View counts, engagement, comparison across platforms. No data persistence on our side — pulled fresh from the platform each time you open the analytics view.
Migrate IG, Threads, FB, TikTok, X to the same direct-upload-to-platform pattern YouTube already uses. Lifts the 500 MB transit cap to each platform's native limit (Facebook → 10 GB, Threads → 1 GB, etc.).
Multi-user accounts where a team member can compose, an approver can review, and the schedule fires from a shared queue. Aimed at agencies and bigger creator businesses. v2.0 territory.
Email us — every message lands in front of a real human.
support@smartpoststudio.com