Batch resize vertical photos to a square without cropping using a blurred background [duplicate]

Question

I have about 3000 vertical images that I need resized to 600x600 pixels each. I've compressed a few using Photoshop where I have duplicated the image and then Gaussian blurred it to cover the background like you see in the image below.

I believe this is how Instagram works with vertical images.

Can I program Photoshop to do this automatically or is there any other software? All the images are in a single folder.

If the blur background isn't possible a light shade of grey would do too.

Answer 1

• For the resizing part: you can use a script from this answer as a part of an Action that'd crop/resize your image to square: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/a/134135/125506;
• For background part simply resize and gaussian/average blur your layer as a different step in the action;
• And then use File > Automate > Batch to run this action on a folder of images;