Set up Smart Post Studio, step by step

Install and sign in

1. Download for Windows or Mac.
2. Install and open it. On Windows you'll see our verified publisher name during install — the installer is code-signed, so no "unknown publisher" warning.
3. Sign in with your Smart Post Studio email and password, or create an account to start the 14-day trial.

One thing to know: the desktop app and the web app currently use separate sign-ins. If your web password doesn't work in the desktop app, that's why — not a fault at your end. We're unifying them.

Connect your accounts

Accounts in the sidebar → Connect next to each platform. A browser window opens, you approve, and you're returned to the app.

Eight platforms: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, LinkedIn and Fanvue.

Two things worth knowing before you start:

• Connect before you compose. Posts can only go to accounts you've connected.
• Disconnecting affects posts already queued. Scheduled posts publish to whichever account is connected at the time they fire. If you disconnect and connect a different account, your whole queue posts there instead. The app warns you before you do it — read that warning.

Where your posts publish from

The most common question we get, so here it is early.

Where you made it	What publishes it
Web app (app.smartpoststudio.com)	Our servers — close the laptop, it still posts
Desktop app	This computer — it must be running at the scheduled time

Both apps share one account, so posts, history and your brand profile appear in both.

The desktop route is why your media keeps its original quality: your machine sends the file straight to the platform, with nothing uploaded to us and nothing re-encoded on the way.

The seven sections

Calendar

Your month at a glance, with a dot on every day that has posts. Click a day to see what's scheduled. Arrows move between months; Today jumps back.

Composer — where posts are made

1. Pick your platforms. One or several. Each keeps its own character limit and rules.
2. Add media. Drag files in or click to upload. The app warns you if a file breaks a platform's rules — X takes at most four images, TikTok and YouTube take a single video.
3. Write the caption, or hit Generate and let the AI write one from a topic. With several platforms selected, Generate writes a different caption for each — tailored to that platform's length and tone, rather than one shortest-common-denominator caption pasted everywhere.
4. Per-platform extras appear when they're relevant. YouTube gets title, description and privacy. TikTok gets title, privacy level, comment/duet/stitch permissions and the commercial-content disclosure.
5. Post now, or Schedule for a date and time.

Instagram: images between 3:4 (tall) and 1.91:1 (wide) post untouched. Anything outside that range is centre-cropped to the nearest allowed shape. Your original file is never modified.

Queue — everything waiting and everything done

Filter by Scheduled, Posted or Failed. Any post can be edited, duplicated or deleted. Failed posts keep the reason they failed.

Badges show where each post came from: ☁ Cloud made in the web app, 🖥 PC made on a desktop, 🤖 AI created by your own AI over MCP.

Writing AI — eight tools

Headlines, Hooks, Hashtags, Rewriter, Thread, CTA and Bio Writer, plus caption generation. Give it a topic — or paste text into the Rewriter — pick a tool, and you get options you can copy or send straight to the Composer.

Everything comes back in the same language you wrote in. Type the topic in Icelandic, get Icelandic, with no detour through English.

Posting History

Four figures at the top — Posted, Scheduled, Failed, Success rate — over 7, 30 or 90 days, or all time. Below that a breakdown by platform, so you can see where you actually post and where things go wrong.

Accounts

Connect and disconnect platforms, see which are live, and check cloud sync — which account this computer is linked to, and when it last synced.

Brand — five tabs that teach the AI your voice

• Voice — name, tagline, industry, niche, audience, age range, location, tone, content pillars, goals, competitors. Everything the AI writes draws on this.
• Hashtags — a strategy per topic, split into core, reach and trending sets.
• Timing — best posting windows per platform as a heat map. Click any slot to start a post for that time.
• Strategy — a multi-week content plan: mix, tone rules, post ideas, what to avoid.
• Captions — bespoke copy per platform for a single idea.

Fill in Voice first. The other four are only as good as what's in it.

Connecting your own AI

On any paid plan you can connect Claude, Claude Code or Cursor over MCP and have it read your queue, write drafts and schedule posts. Tokens are created in AI access in the web app.

Nothing your AI makes fires immediately — everything it creates is a draft or a scheduled post with at least ten minutes' lead time, marked with the 🤖 AI badge in your Queue so you can spot it and stop it.

Read the MCP setup guide

A sensible first week

1. Connect two platforms, not eight. Get the rhythm first.
2. Fill in Brand → Voice before you use Writing AI. It's the difference between usable drafts and generic ones.
3. Schedule three posts and watch them fire.
4. Check Posting History the next morning.
5. Then batch a full week from the Calendar.

A post didn't go out?

Open Queue → Failed. The post keeps the reason. The usual causes:

• The platform wasn't connected, or was disconnected after the post was scheduled
• The desktop app wasn't running when a desktop-scheduled post was due
• The platform rejected the media — wrong shape, too large, or too long
• The connection expired — reconnect that platform in Accounts and re-fire the post

Anything else, email support. It goes straight to Olver, who built it. More platform detail lives in the FAQ.

Signing out

Signing out clears this computer — connected platforms, local posts, brand profile. Nothing already published is affected, and everything that synced comes back when you sign in again, including your posting history and brand profile.