Here’s how to easily create your own automatic Instagram printer, similar to Instaprint on Kickstarter, using Automator on a Mac, Ifttt.com and Dropbox.
Follow these steps.
Open Automator and choose to create a Folder Action.
Select the Folder to monitor for new images. This must be a folder in your Dropbox but doesn’t need to be in your Public folder. That’s up to you.
Add the ‘Get Specified Finder Items’ action to your automator script. This is required to test your script within Automator.
Add a ‘Print Image’s action to your automator script. Now you can select which printer to print to and adjust a few settings.
Now head off to Ifttt.com and create a task to ‘Print Instagram Photos’ to Dropbox.
Choose ‘New photo by anyone tagged’ or ‘New photo by you tagged’. Define the unique tag to search and specify the Dropbox folder path. It’s important you get this right.
And that’s it.
Update:
I just bought myself a Polaroid PoGo. It doesn’t show up as a regular printer because it’s bluetooth, so instead add ‘Run Applescript’ to your Automator workflow.
You will need the bluetooth address, which can be found via Preferences -> Bluetooth -> Show More Info.
on run {input, parameters}
tell application “Bluetooth File Exchange”
send file POSIX path of input as string to device “00-04-48-24-C8-C5″end tell (* Bluetooth File Exchange *)
return input
end run












Hey,
This is really cool – I’m trying to print out the images via my printer but it seems to be using default settings – do you know how I would use AppleScript to set a printing preset prior to the print happening?
Thanks,
Dan
Hello, great information, I just bought the Polaroid gl10 and I’m trying to set the printer as default in the system on my mac, I tried to use the script but the instructions are not clear, could you please guide me to configure the script?
There is a sintaxis error.
Thanks, Carlos
Hello mate,
I’m trying the solution with a Polaroid GL10, when I try to set this printer using bluetooth it doesn’t work.
This is the error that appear there.
Sintaxis error
Expected an expresion, property or keyform, etc… But an unknown error has been found.
Thanks for your help mate
Carlos
Hi,
I’ve been trying to make this work but the workflow doesn’t seem to run upon new files added in. If I were to use a USB printer to print, is there anything I must change?
Thank you and I look forward to your favorable reply.
Best Regards,
Ryan
It doesn’t run? I didn’t try it with USB but if it shows up like a regular printer, just ignore the Bluetooth section.