Review Insights · App Store
Insta360
Insta360 · 8,966 ratings · ★ 4.5
4.5
★★★★★
8,966 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 56 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"camera"
20 negative reviews mention this · 36% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Wont work. I bought an x3 camera recently and when trying to download the app it will download but the moment i try to ise the app my screen totally freezes and i have uninstalled and reinstalled the app about 6 times now nothing is working. So i boug…" - bigtony24
2
"video"
13 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible app made worse with each update. Review Update: as of 27 April the cloud export function has stopped working entirely. I just updated to the most recent version of the app and now have three clips in “Processing” status for four hours. These clips range from 30 - 90 seco…" - Gcon82
3
"update"
11 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible app made worse with each update. Review Update: as of 27 April the cloud export function has stopped working entirely. I just updated to the most recent version of the app and now have three clips in “Processing” status for four hours. These clips range from 30 - 90 seco…" - Gcon82
4
"insta360"
11 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible app made worse with each update. Review Update: as of 27 April the cloud export function has stopped working entirely. I just updated to the most recent version of the app and now have three clips in “Processing” status for four hours. These clips range from 30 - 90 seco…" - Gcon82
5
"export"
10 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Amazing hardware… HORRIFIC SOFTWARE!!!!!. Settings buried in weird places; exports doing unexpected things; “AI first “UI choices over professional controls; inundation of ads absolutely everywhere; watermark, nightmare!!" - Tt22rayray
6
"editing"
9 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible app made worse with each update. Review Update: as of 27 April the cloud export function has stopped working entirely. I just updated to the most recent version of the app and now have three clips in “Processing” status for four hours. These clips range from 30 - 90 seco…" - Gcon82
7
"trying"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Ads Are Bad.. An app for an expensive product we already purchased should not send me push notifications trying to sell me things or get me to enter giveaways." - Jean Sean
8
"every"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Amazing hardware… HORRIFIC SOFTWARE!!!!!. Settings buried in weird places; exports doing unexpected things; “AI first “UI choices over professional controls; inundation of ads absolutely everywhere; watermark, nightmare!!" - Tt22rayray
9
"cannot"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Privacy and Live Stream concerns. This is a mostly decent app, but has some glaring issues. The first, and biggest imho, is that you cannot access videos you’ve downloaded to your phone from the camera without granting the app full access. The app will straight refuse to le…" - OMG Yeti
10
"videos"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Privacy and Live Stream concerns. This is a mostly decent app, but has some glaring issues. The first, and biggest imho, is that you cannot access videos you’ve downloaded to your phone from the camera without granting the app full access. The app will straight refuse to le…" - OMG Yeti
11
"data"
7 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Privacy and Live Stream concerns. This is a mostly decent app, but has some glaring issues. The first, and biggest imho, is that you cannot access videos you’ve downloaded to your phone from the camera without granting the app full access. The app will straight refuse to le…" - OMG Yeti
12
"work"
6 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Wont work. I bought an x3 camera recently and when trying to download the app it will download but the moment i try to ise the app my screen totally freezes and i have uninstalled and reinstalled the app about 6 times now nothing is working. So i boug…" - bigtony24
📋 All 56 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Amazing hardware… HORRIFIC SOFTWARE!!!!!
Settings buried in weird places; exports doing unexpected things; “AI first “UI choices over professional controls; inundation of ads absolutely everywhere; watermark, nightmare!!
Ads Are Bad.
An app for an expensive product we already purchased should not send me push notifications trying to sell me things or get me to enter giveaways.
Wont work
I bought an x3 camera recently and when trying to download the app it will download but the moment i try to ise the app my screen totally freezes and i have uninstalled and reinstalled the app about 6 times now nothing is working. So i bought a 300$ camera and cant even use it
Horrible UI
I get it.. Chinese devs and marketing that is giving the “Temu” vibe. Bloatware, everywhere, makes the entire experience cluttered. Horrible.
Terrible app made worse with each update
Review Update: as of 27 April the cloud export function has stopped working entirely. I just updated to the most recent version of the app and now have three clips in “Processing” status for four hours. These clips range from 30 - 90 seconds in length. As stated in the title…worse with each update!
I bought an Insta360 camera specifically because of the Garmin integration. As a cyclist this is exactly what I was looking for. Sadly the desktop version where it would be far easier to do large scale editing is completely non-functional, which is a different issue entirely. Despite the massive inconvenience of trying to scroll through three hours of footage on mobile…that’s what I have been doing. But now with the most recent updates - nothing works. Stat overlays no longer export!!! They literally show up for one frame at the beginning of each clip and then disappear…but of course the stupid Insta360 watermark that I don’t want on the video remains in place perfectly. What’s even worse is that when contacting support they find every reason in the world to try and tell you it is YOUR FAULT. Even if you do everything exactly according to guidelines…or exactly how it had been working for weeks prior. This is the single most frustrating tech experience I’ve ever had, and buying an Insta360 camera has been the biggest waste of money I could imagine. Stop paying influencers to lie about how great your product is and actually do some engineering.
I bought an Insta360 camera specifically because of the Garmin integration. As a cyclist this is exactly what I was looking for. Sadly the desktop version where it would be far easier to do large scale editing is completely non-functional, which is a different issue entirely. Despite the massive inconvenience of trying to scroll through three hours of footage on mobile…that’s what I have been doing. But now with the most recent updates - nothing works. Stat overlays no longer export!!! They literally show up for one frame at the beginning of each clip and then disappear…but of course the stupid Insta360 watermark that I don’t want on the video remains in place perfectly. What’s even worse is that when contacting support they find every reason in the world to try and tell you it is YOUR FAULT. Even if you do everything exactly according to guidelines…or exactly how it had been working for weeks prior. This is the single most frustrating tech experience I’ve ever had, and buying an Insta360 camera has been the biggest waste of money I could imagine. Stop paying influencers to lie about how great your product is and actually do some engineering.
App crash on launch
Since the last update the app crashes immediately, completely unusable.
One disappointment after another
The camera, remote and app forever have connectivity issue and with the security concerns I do not use the app. I generally delete after checking to see if the latest update resolves my connectivity issue and delete it after being disappointed.
If you like gimmicky photoshop features baked in because you don’t have photoshop this is probably ok but the paid you tubers are lot telling you the whole truth
If you like gimmicky photoshop features baked in because you don’t have photoshop this is probably ok but the paid you tubers are lot telling you the whole truth
Clutter clutter clutter
The Insta360 app feels so overpacked with unnecessary stuff. Between all the un-asked for social features and ads on tops of ads on top of ads, it feels like syncing to the camera and editing footage is a secondary function of the app rather than it’s primary purpose.
Spending upwards of $400 for a camera, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever, every time I open the app just to see my photos, I’m hit with a prompt to purchase something else. Sometimes I’m even prompted to purchase the camera that I’m actively syncing with my app.
You would think that the app could be smart enough to say “hey he’s clearly already using this hardware let me not blast him with ads for it.”
The first thing that I see whenever I open the companion app for my $400 camera should not be an advertisement.
Spending upwards of $400 for a camera, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever, every time I open the app just to see my photos, I’m hit with a prompt to purchase something else. Sometimes I’m even prompted to purchase the camera that I’m actively syncing with my app.
You would think that the app could be smart enough to say “hey he’s clearly already using this hardware let me not blast him with ads for it.”
The first thing that I see whenever I open the companion app for my $400 camera should not be an advertisement.
Privacy and Live Stream concerns
This is a mostly decent app, but has some glaring issues. The first, and biggest imho, is that you cannot access videos you’ve downloaded to your phone from the camera without granting the app full access. The app will straight refuse to let you see anything if you limit access. They’ve said on a Reddit post about it that it is to “prevent users from having to manually add newly downloaded videos to the access list via a tedious process,” but literally that is exactly the cost that all of us who use limit access pay to keep apps like this from requesting more access than is necessary. It’s literally in the name of the option. If things are going to be limited it’s because I know I’m going to need to specify the limits.
The other issue I have with the app involved live streaming. If you are logged in using an account with a gmail account and try to stream to YouTube(the only streaming option shown that is something I use) it will automatically select the YouTube account of the Gmail address you used. I have a Gmail account that I use specifically for paying for subscriptions(like the Insta360 subscription that I will not be renewing), and I want to live stream to a different YouTube account that I have established for streaming specific things that I don’t want associated with my other accounts. The Insta360 app does not currently allow this, and given the limitations with camera roll access I have no choice but to assume now that this is also a choice by Insta360 as allowing the YouTube streaming to target a separate account would do the exact thing I have multiple accounts for, which is make it harder to track and associate various online activities with the same person.
Thankfully you can still use the camera with an air gapped computer for things, but it’s unfortunate to have that be the only way I can download and edit my Insta360 videos. I also have a spare iPad I can dedicate to this which has its own Apple ID and will have a camera roll of only Insta360 media. I would rather companies just allow privacy conscious users the ability to use apps on their phones with certain limitations like most non-shady companies do. The deliberate choice not to not allow this when it’s been a complaint from users for years clearly shows it’s their intent to gather as much data on their users as possible, and is worse than if they had just ignored the complaints at all instead of justify them with bad logic.
The other issue I have with the app involved live streaming. If you are logged in using an account with a gmail account and try to stream to YouTube(the only streaming option shown that is something I use) it will automatically select the YouTube account of the Gmail address you used. I have a Gmail account that I use specifically for paying for subscriptions(like the Insta360 subscription that I will not be renewing), and I want to live stream to a different YouTube account that I have established for streaming specific things that I don’t want associated with my other accounts. The Insta360 app does not currently allow this, and given the limitations with camera roll access I have no choice but to assume now that this is also a choice by Insta360 as allowing the YouTube streaming to target a separate account would do the exact thing I have multiple accounts for, which is make it harder to track and associate various online activities with the same person.
Thankfully you can still use the camera with an air gapped computer for things, but it’s unfortunate to have that be the only way I can download and edit my Insta360 videos. I also have a spare iPad I can dedicate to this which has its own Apple ID and will have a camera roll of only Insta360 media. I would rather companies just allow privacy conscious users the ability to use apps on their phones with certain limitations like most non-shady companies do. The deliberate choice not to not allow this when it’s been a complaint from users for years clearly shows it’s their intent to gather as much data on their users as possible, and is worse than if they had just ignored the complaints at all instead of justify them with bad logic.
Stop the freaking ads!!!
Notifications are for what I feel is important. Not your ad campaign!!!
Update - the dev reached out and said I could disable notifications. That is not an acceptable answer. I want notifications active for things I find important when using my Insta360 camera. Things like new content added to my Camera or firmware update or something I need to act on. Not some marketing campaign that they want me to act on. I’m so tired of companies abusing notifications for ads.
Notification feeds are turning into another email that no one will check anymore and becomes useless vecause of ads.
Update - the dev reached out and said I could disable notifications. That is not an acceptable answer. I want notifications active for things I find important when using my Insta360 camera. Things like new content added to my Camera or firmware update or something I need to act on. Not some marketing campaign that they want me to act on. I’m so tired of companies abusing notifications for ads.
Notification feeds are turning into another email that no one will check anymore and becomes useless vecause of ads.
La app no descarga las imágenes en 360
Desde la actualización eh batallado en descargar las imágenes en formato 360 :
Todo se descarga en JPEG 😢😢😢
Todo lo demás está bien , solo es esta falla que n las imágenes 360 🥺🥺🥺
Todo se descarga en JPEG 😢😢😢
Todo lo demás está bien , solo es esta falla que n las imágenes 360 🥺🥺🥺
The most dumb thing!
It take wifi to connect device therefore it unable to export video to cloud!
Folks! Make device able to connect to regular wifi!
Folks! Make device able to connect to regular wifi!
Garbage paper weight
Bought 2 of them and both stay on black screen the led with flash blue or pink but no screen comes on, waste of money and time
Too confusing, with no logic at all
Back in the day, before the release of the X4, the app was pretty straightforward, not confusing at all. Then after the release of the X4, somewhere in between the X4 and the X5 someone had the brilliant idea of redo the app and whoever did that made it extremely confusing. I still don’t know where to find the tools, sometimes I can see them, but sometimes I don’t so it’s just annoying.
Insta360 app
The app really sucks when I try editing the video it lags out I deleted tha app and reinstalled on many devices and still will not work it updates at least three times a month so I’m not understanding why the app is not working. I have started using CapCut and haven’t ran into these problems Insta360 needs to change the platform they are with because the editing is a big problem
Lack of Respect for Privacy
I don’t expect much from a company based in China. But for the money paid, this is Temu level experience. The app requests access to things IT DOES NOT require all the time. You CANNOT disable them for good. And ads…. omg the ads get old! Again, like a $1 Temu camera!!! Disguting corpkraye ethics and total lack of privacy here.
Camera roll only
App only allows editing and saving videos to/from camera roll and not from Files (to allow editing from external usb drives and network drives) terrible for power users, and professionals
Sells your data
I don’t want the app, but to use the camera I paid for, I’m F’d into using the app which admittedly will invade my phone and sell my private data and send me adds. And of course the privacy policy on the App Store is a recipe for Kunp Pau chicken.
Terrible app
Got logged out and wont let me log back in. lost all my footage on my cloud. should have bought gopro
Not happy with new update
The app doesn’t work as well after update.
Recent app overhaul not good
They took a lot of precision features and buried them. In their place are “AI” tools that are not accurate or consistent enough for professional use.
My usual file is about 20 minutes long, not action or sports related, and only focusing on one subject. This update made the app significantly worse for people like me.
*1 year update*
App continues to get worse. Tracking is almost unusable now. You select a person and it will shuffle back and forth between the person’s face, their midsection, and their feet… causing the video to pan wildly. Then, should anything enter the tracking square, it will expand it so far that it will include everything in the scene and then lose focus of the original tracked person. Maybe six months ago it used to have a little bit of leeway on that, but seems to have just gotten worse, again.
My usual file is about 20 minutes long, not action or sports related, and only focusing on one subject. This update made the app significantly worse for people like me.
*1 year update*
App continues to get worse. Tracking is almost unusable now. You select a person and it will shuffle back and forth between the person’s face, their midsection, and their feet… causing the video to pan wildly. Then, should anything enter the tracking square, it will expand it so far that it will include everything in the scene and then lose focus of the original tracked person. Maybe six months ago it used to have a little bit of leeway on that, but seems to have just gotten worse, again.
Used to be a Great camera, trash app.
The camera is great for video. The app is very unintuitive and glitchy on my iPhone 15 pro max. It forced an update that screwed up my gyroscope apparently because now all my photos are crooked. Now I have a $550 dollar paperweight because I need it for photos not video and it’s useless to me!
Very slow
System seems to move very slow and requires a lot to export images
Not working
I’m trying to export my project and it just close the app
Video cannot export to iphone service support DOES NOT EXIST
Horrible and unworking product. Paperweight and brick which CANNOT export after 2 uses
A ridiculously large app for added functionality you don’t even need.
I don’t have any media linked to the app and only use it occasionally to download videos from my camera. Yet I still need to keep an app that takes up 3.5 GB of storage on my phone, and it’s the only way to connect to the camera wirelessly. [Update after developer reply] I deleted the app because it’s ridiculous for it to take up this much space. Before deleting it, I checked the cache and it was only 36 MB. However, in the iPhone storage settings, the app size was listed as 2.1 GB (the same size shown on the download page), and Documents & Data were using another 1.35 GB. This is without any media stored in the app. It was by far the heaviest app on my phone, using more than double the storage space of the second largest app.
I already regret buying my Go Ultra camera based on how difficult it is to transfer media from it. I have an iPhone microSD card reader, but it doesn’t work with the camera’s format for some reason. So I end up connecting the microSD card directly to my MacBook Pro, which feels like a ridiculous workaround for such an “advanced” product.
I already regret buying my Go Ultra camera based on how difficult it is to transfer media from it. I have an iPhone microSD card reader, but it doesn’t work with the camera’s format for some reason. So I end up connecting the microSD card directly to my MacBook Pro, which feels like a ridiculous workaround for such an “advanced” product.
Major Playback Regression
So the latest update has made the app completely unusable in a 13 pro. I was completely content with the previous version of the app but updated to see if the AI edit tool which isn’t bad would respect my accessory selection (it shows the case when it thinks there is a lens cover). Now it simply stutters completely making editing on the device impossible. This is my only use case for the app so it is completely useless to me now. What we the change it was a MAJOR regression from a performance perspective.
Crash everytime
Cant edit a single video using iPhone 16 pro max. App crashes every time
Ads Everywhere
After paying hundreds of dollars for their camera and accessories, you still get to watch their ads every time you use their app. What a great deal!
An annoying window with advertising
When I open the app, an advertisement appears. It is very annoying and disruptive. I paid for and purchased products from Insta360 not to watch ads.
2GB To Activate Camera
Needing to activate a camera to use it is some quality 1984 mentality.
No Recycle Bin
No recycle bin option. Went to delete one photo and entire album was gone. Cannot access deleted photos because of no recycle bin.
Lost 180GB of Footage!!!
I had 180GB of footage on my iphone storage, and i hadn’t used the Insta360 app in a while so it automatically offloaded. Well when i was trying to reinstall, it deleted EVERYTHING! And that’s not insta 360s fault. What IS their fault, is the inefficient way to upload files to the cloud. There was no way to upload already downloaded footage on my phone onto the cloud(which i pay for), no idea if they finally added that feature now because my FOOTAGE IS ALREADY GONE!!!
Cannot export any longer
The device is useless without the ability to export. I’ve tried everything.
Used to be good
I used to be able to trim video, use gps from my bike computer for stats and continue editing. It now is u responsive as soon as I add the gpx data. Even worse, on exporting, if a clip in the middle of the video has stats, the stats won’t even render until 60 seconds into the clip even though in the app stats was applied to the whole clip.
Stats is nearly unusable now. I’m considering returning this camera now.
Stats is nearly unusable now. I’m considering returning this camera now.
Almost perfect -- missing airplane mode & dlog 10 bit
Updated review: the X5 rocks! I love the shooting modes, the image quality is great for 360. One major missing feature is a toggle for airplane mode. I want to max out the battery for shooting video, not for wifi and bluetooth. Please add an airplane mode that is for filming only. The ultra battery is nice, but still not the solution. Also, give me the ability to color grade for real. I want DLOG 10 bit, like your other cameras. 5-star review once the firmware is updated with the (1) ability to turn off wifi and bluetooth or simply an airplane mode button as well as (2) pro color grading. I believe in you, insta360 team!
Pathetic Privacy and Data Soak
Downloaded just to review this apps need for my data. Not that I’ll ever open something this creepy. That plus click on the devs privacy policy and hope you can read Chinese. Not really a DJI fan but read their cameras data collection.
Cannot export
The app is great for creating videos and editing content. However, once you’ve spent time creating a wonderful video project you cannot export it to share it. Why even allow me to waste my time editing a video if it can’t be exported? It’s frustrating that exporting an edited 360 video cannot be accomplished in this era of AI.
Insta360 app
Good camera but the app doesn’t even open , work for a few weeks once I decline all the offers on getting cloud storage and registering, now app won’t open at all ..
Hideously nonfunctional
This is the single worst iPad app I’ve ever used. Using an iPad Pro M5. Constant issues with sound, glitching UI, different issues with both portrait and landscape mode, etc. it’s genuinely unreal, and is a shame because the cameras themselves are great - but this makes me pick up my GoPro instead.
Fake ratings
Read the reviews in order by the newest and you see the problem.
Make the app usable for people who know video editing
Video editing software has been a thing for decades. I understand wanting to make a user friendly an app for people who don’t know how to edit video, but make an option in the app to switch to a mode that somewhat matches other professional video editing software. Having to completely relearn video editing makes me regret purchasing this camera.
Not recording
Twice already where I'm using the gimbal to record videos and it says it's recording but when i go to review my videos it only recorded like 5 seconds. I know I'm recording because i can see the red marker and counter but then the videos aren't loaded. Missed great content because of this issue.
Sleazy
They have a watermark on every x5 download unless you turn it off. I just spent 2 hours downloading footage and now I have to redo it all. What the hell insta360.
The most “thrown-together” in recent memory.
4.5 rating is B.S. friends (how many bots did Iinsta360 hire?). The app is one of the most confusing and non-work-flow capable.
Latest update
Latest update won’t allow x4 connect to my phone, fix issue
Ok
The camera is wonderful, but when you’re trying to watch the videos back, they will randomly have no sound and then you go back another day and the sound works
Camera
Camera should always stay connected
Garmin stats overlay broke in this latest release.
Garmin stat overlays have been frustrating from the start with videos and overlay data being continuously out of sync. The new recommendation is to connect and sync the camera before every use which is a nuisance extra step.
With this latest release, the stats overlays appear briefly and then disappear fie the rest of that clip. Definitely a glitch in the export part of the app.
With this latest release, the stats overlays appear briefly and then disappear fie the rest of that clip. Definitely a glitch in the export part of the app.
Editing
It takes so much effort trying to edit cook vids/clips - so then I just default to AI which takes a minute per theme and then they’re like a motivation reel with garbage music. I have to cut clips and go to capcut. I would rather just shred with no vids
+ 6 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
86%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
11%
Negative (1-2★)