Unfold is the app behind the edgy Instagram posts you keep seeing

Staying ahead of the curve is a vital part of maintaining engagement for many Instagram users, with even the more casual Instagrammers looking for inspiration from the site’s more renowned influencers.

In the past that has been the clever use of filters, collages or using multiple posts to build one large checkerboard on a profile page – but now there’s a new app helping users stand out.

Called Unfold, it is the software behind many of the edgy posts you’re likely to have seen in recent months – the various templates make Instagram photos look like retro collections of photo negative or images captured with an instant camera.

This plays into the very heart of what Instagram is – after all, many of its original filters are designed to give photos captured with modern smartphones the look of a photo taken years ago on a classic camera.

And unlike some software tools used to spruce up Instagram posts, Unfold is a free app, available on both iOS and Android. However, some of its templates do require in-app purchases to unlock.

And once downloaded it is easy to get started with as a photo editing tool – users can choose from a wide range of templates to add pages to an Unfold story, which can then be shared to Instagram individually or as a collection of images.

Users can also choose to change the colour of borders and backgrounds as well as drop in extra text boxes where they see fit.

It’s a surprisingly simple piece of software compared to some of its photo editing rivals.

Unfold’s success has not gone unnoticed either. It has already been downloaded more than three million times despite only launching at the start of the year.

So the next time you feel the urge to liven up your Instagram profile and keep up with the influencers, there’s a free app waiting to offer you a hand.