Features

Hot Folder & Desktop Tools

Post photos without opening the dashboard. Drop a file into a folder on your computer and it schedules itself — or right-click any photo and send it straight to StudioFlows.

Included with the Social Scheduler. The desktop tools come with your Social Scheduler subscription. The Settings → Desktop tab only appears once you have it.

What you get

  • An auto-post folder — anything you drop in gets scheduled automatically
  • Right-click posting — send a photo to StudioFlows from Finder or File Explorer
Where this fits a photographer's workflow: point your Lightroom export straight at the auto-post folder. Finish a session, export your picks, and they queue themselves while you move on.

Installing

  1. Go to Settings → Desktop in your dashboard
  2. Copy the install command for your operating system
  3. Mac: paste it into Terminal. Windows: paste it into PowerShell.
  4. Press Enter and let it finish

One install sets up both the folder watcher and the right-click options.

Your API key: the install command includes it, which is why you copy it from your own Settings page rather than typing it from a guide. Treat it like a password — anyone with it can post to your accounts.

Using the Hot Folder

After installing, you'll have an auto-post folder. Drop files in and they're posted on your schedule.

Platform Folder
Mac ~/StudioFlows/AutoPost/
Windows %USERPROFILE%\StudioFlows\AutoPost\

It picks up JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, MP4, and MOV files.

Done and Failed

The watcher creates two subfolders and moves each file after handling it:

  • Done/ — posted successfully
  • Failed/ — something went wrong

This is the first place to look if you're not sure whether a file went out. An empty AutoPost/ with your file sitting in Done/ means it worked.

Cropped vs. original

Drop it here What happens
AutoPost/ Automatically cropped for each platform you post to
AutoPost/Use Original Crop/ Posted exactly as-is, no cropping

Use the Use Original Crop subfolder when you've already framed the image the way you want it. See AI Smart Cropping for how the automatic cropping works.

Adding captions

Drop a .txt file with the same base name as your photo, and its contents become the caption:

headshot-sarah.jpg
headshot-sarah.txt

You can also write a different caption per platform using section markers:

---DEFAULT---
New headshots from this morning's session.

---INSTAGRAM---
New headshots from this morning ✨
#headshots #phillyphotographer

---LINKEDIN---
Corporate headshot session with the team at Acme Co.
Booking now for Q3.

Any platform without its own section falls back to ---DEFAULT---.

Section markers are available for: INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, TIKTOK, LINKEDIN, THREADS, BLUESKY, YOUTUBE, and PINTEREST. Other platforms use the default caption.

Worth doing. A LinkedIn caption and an Instagram caption should not be the same sentence. Section markers let you write both once, at export time, instead of editing posts later.

Upload Hub

If you have both the Social Scheduler and Web Watch, an Upload Hub appears at the top of your sidebar. It's a single drop zone that routes photos to either destination:

  1. Drop your photos in
  2. Select which ones go where
  3. Route them to Social Media, Image Tracking, or both

It accepts JPG, PNG, and WebP, and the same .txt caption matching works here — drag your caption files in alongside your photos.

Keeping it updated

The desktop tools update themselves daily. To update immediately, run:

~/.studioflows/update.sh

Changing your API key or uninstalling

Both are covered by copy-paste commands under Settings → Desktop — expand "Update API key or uninstall". There are separate commands for Mac and Windows.

Troubleshooting

Photos in the folder aren't posting

  • Check the Failed/ subfolder — if your file is there, it was picked up but couldn't be posted
  • Confirm the file type is one of JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, MP4, or MOV
  • Check that you have connected accounts and an active posting schedule
  • Make sure the file landed in the auto-post folder itself, not a folder beside it
  • If you recently changed your API key, update it on the desktop side too

My caption didn't get used

The .txt file has to match the image's base name exactly — photo.jpg pairs with photo.txt. A mismatch means the photo posts with no caption.

The right-click option isn't showing

Restart Finder or File Explorer after installing. If it still doesn't appear, re-run the install command from Settings → Desktop.

AI Smart Cropping Web Watch

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