We've always strived to make the Combin software as user-friendly and convenient as possible. With every new feature, bug fix and release, we think about how you'll feel when using our apps. Here we're sharing some practical tips from our support team on how you can further improve the user experience when exploiting the Combin applications.

Make a New Hashtag Search Right from Posts You Found

Not many of you know that when you have your hashtag search results loaded, you can right-click any post from the results and start a new search by any of the hashtags featured in this post. Just choose Add search from the list and select the hashtag you need.

Or you can even see all users who liked or commented on this particular post. Convinient, yet not so obvious!

Use Proxies in Combin Growth

Instagram is specific about how many accounts can be accessed via the same IP address — it’s one. High activity on multiple Instagram accounts from one IP address may be considered to be spam-like and lead to penalties, from temporary activity limitation to permanent account ban.

To avoid getting banned on Instagram, social media managers use proxies to simulate multiple accounts being active from different IP addresses. Proxy acts as an intermediary between user computer and Instagram servers, masking the actual user IP address with a new one.

Below you can find the list of providers we recommend getting proxies from for Instagram automation with Combin. All of the listed providers were tested and proved to be compatible with our software and stable.

You can surely use proxies from other providers, but in this case, we cannot guarantee the account connected through them won’t be suspected by Instagram.

VPN Providers for Users from China

The following VPN providers grant the censorship circumvention and successful connection to Instagram with a new IP address.

💡To learn how to turn on proxy, check 👈 this guide.

Use Safe Mode  

There are three types of the task process intensity mode in Combin Growth: Safe, Optimal, and Risky. Since Instagram has daily limits on the amount of actions an account is expected to perform on the platform without looking spam-like, we strongly recommend using the first option – Safe Mode.

Safe Mode in Combin Growth allows your actions to look human-like without casting a shadow on your profile as though all actions are performed by a bot. When the Safe Mode is on, the application performs tasks with larger intervals and makes fewer tasks overall throughout that time period.

To enable the Safe Mode, go to Preferences → Limits → Intensity → Safe.

Filter Out Irrelevant Users

Combin Growth allows you to search for Instagram users with super narrow targeting criteria. Yet, even this doesn't always secure it from showing you irrelevant search results. To improve your experience, use Advanced Filters and Analysis setting at the Search tab in order to detect and filter out Irrelevant users. It helps saving time and your daily Instagram limits for interacting with real, potentially interested accounts.

💡Irrelevant users are accounts which are inefficient interaction-wise as determined by Combin machine learning-enhanced user analysis algorithm. During the analysis, such attributes as followers and following count ratio, amount of posts, publishing frequency, advertisements presence, and different interrelationships between them, are taken into account. Users with too huge of an audience and spammy accounts are considered to be irrelevant as neither is capable of providing quality engagement, if any at all.

Prevent System Asleep Until the Tasks Are Finished

To make sure all the tasks you've scheduled are performed by Combin in time, toggle on the Prevent system asleep until the tasks are finished in the settings: Preferences → General.

Otherwise, there's a possibility that when your PC is asleep, some tasks on liking, following and commenting won't be performed.

Set Up the Required Activities in Settings

Just now when you're in the app's settings, select the Activities tab and set up the the actions you'd like to be performed by the app.

For instance, you can specify how many recent posts you want to like, and Combin will like this exact amount of posts by default.

Or to make the automation look more human-like, you can toggle on Do not comment on already commented posts or Do not follow previously unfollowed users.

Use Safe List

Safe List is a place for Instagram accounts you don’t want to unfollow at all. Accounts added to this list are protected from being unfollowed by mistake when performing mass unfollowing tasks with Combin.

Such accounts have a shield icon next to their profile pictures.

You can find the Safe list itself at the Users tab, next to the categories of accounts you follow:

Safe list itself is located at the Users tab

In order to add accounts Safe List, do the following:

1. Launch Combin Growth and open the Users tab.

2. Select the category of people you follow:

Select the category of people you follow 

3. Pick Instagram accounts you want to protect either manually by clicking on them or Select All:

Manual selection of the accounts
Selecting all of the accounts from your following

4. After picking the accounts you want to add to Safe List, right-click on any of the accounts.

5. Pick the Add Users to Safe list option from the drop-down menu. The accounts will be instantly added to the list.

Pick the Add Users to Safe list option from the drop-down menu.

That’s it!

Add Users to Black List

Black List is a place for redundant accounts you are not interested in interacting with.

💡Accounts added to the list within Combin will not be blocked on Instagram, but you won't see them in the search results anymore and won't be able to interact with them within the application.

Here's how to add accounts to Black List within Combin:

1. Click on any user from the search results with the right mouse button.

2. Pick the Add this author to Black List option from the pop-up menu and click on it.

Pick the ‘‘Add this author to Black list’’ option from the pop-up menu and click it:

The user will be immediately added to Combin Black List, located at the Users tab:

The user will be immediately added to Combin Black list, located at the Users tab:

The accounts you added to the list can always be removed from it:

Open the Users tab, click the blacklisted category to see the full list of accounts. Select some or all of the users you want to remove from the list, then click with the right mouse button and pick the Remove users from Black List option:

The user will be immediately added to Combin Black list, located at the Users tab:

Back Up Users List, Search & Task History

In case you just need to re-enter your password after changing it or manually refresh information about following/followers count, please don’t log out of your account but re-log in instead (Account → Re-login to {username}).

It’s a much safer option that allows updating the information without losing the searches, tasks and user lists.

If you change the computer you used to manage your Instagram accounts within Combin on or there are other reasons for logging out, here is how you can make sure the next time you log in, all information remains intact and you don’t have to fill the user lists and create searches from scratch:

Step 1: Find and Copy the Database

Find the application folder on your computer by the following path:

🟣Windows: C:/Users/<User Name>/AppData/Local/Open Media LLC/Combin/Combin/

🟣Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Open Media LLC/Combin/Combin/

🟣Linux: ~/.local/share/Open Media LLC/Combin/Combin

  1. Quit Combin, make sure it’s not running in the background (Preferences → General → Run Combin in the background when it's closed → Off).
  2. Copy the Combin folder with all its contents to any other location on your computer or portable device (memory card, external hard drive, etc.).

💡Note that Mac users may experience difficulties finding the application folder because there are several folders called Library on this operating system. If you encounter this problem, follow the instructions below:

  1. Open Finder.
  2. Open the Go menu.
  3. Push the Option button on your keyboard. Additional ‘Library’ option should appear after that.
  4. Click ‘Library’ and find the Application Support folder there, then ‘Open Media LLC’ and ‘Combin’ folders respectively.
  5. Repeat the Step 1.

Step 2: Perform the Actions That Require Backup

Depending on your purpose, transfer the copied folder to another computer or reinstall Combin on your current computer.

Step 3: Restore the Database

  1. Launch Combin, but don’t log in to your Instagram account within the application.
  2. Quit the application.

Find the application folder by the path below:

🟣Windows: C:/Users/<User Name>/Local/Open Media LLC/Combin/Combin/

🟣Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Open Media LLC/Combin/Combin/

🟣Linux: ~/.local/share/Open Media LLC/Combin/Combin

  1. Replace the application folder with the Combin folder you copied in Step 1.
  2. Launch Combin. The information from the database will start loading in the application.

Export Instagram Following/Followers in CSV, XLS, & HTML

Combin Growth can export information about Instagram accounts you follow, your followers, unfollowed users, accounts protected from unfollowing, and blacklisted accounts. All searches for Instagram accounts and posts that you've run in Combin, are also available for export.

There are several different ways the user groups and searches can be exported:

  • As an XLS or CSV file
  • As a TXT file
  • As an HTML file
  • As a web page URL

How to export the user lists and searches in CSV, TXT and HTML formats:

  1. Launch Combin Growth.
  2. Open either the Users or Search tab.
  3. Find the user group or search you’d like to export.
  4. (Optional) Click the funnel symbol to apply filters and sift out irrelevant items.
  5. Use the right mouse button to click the group or search you want to export.
  6. The drop-down list of options will appear. Select Export All to save the list or search as is; select Export Filtered to only export the items left after filtration.
  7. In the dialog window, click the Save as type field and select the preferable format — CSV, XLS, TXT or HTML.
  8. Click Save. The exported file can be opened in Excel and other applications to view and manage the contents.

How to export the user lists and searches into a web page:

  1. Launch Combin Growth.
  2. Open either the Users or Search tab.
  3. Find the user group or search you’d like to export.
  4. (Optional) Click the funnel symbol to apply filters and sift out irrelevant items.
  5. Use the right mouse button to click the group or search you want to export.
  6. Select the Link to the List option in the drop-down menu.
  7. Copy the generated link from the application. Open it in the browser to see the contents. Save the URL to your notes for future reference or sharing with your marketing team.

That's it!

Here are the hacks and tips handpicked by our support team to make your experience smoother. If you have any issues, ideas or just want to swing by, reach out to us as support@combin.com or our subreddit.