With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the most popular apps for sharing photos and videos. Whether you want to look back on special memories, have offline access to favorite posts, or edit and re-share content, downloading Instagram posts to your smartphone can be very useful.
Unfortunately, unlike other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Instagram does not have a simple way to bulk download everything you’ve shared. The app limits how much you can save from within it.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll explain the various methods to save Instagram photos, videos, and stories to your phone’s camera roll or gallery based on different requirements.
Saving Photos and Videos from Your Own Instagram Feed
The good news is – Instagram does allow saving your own feed posts to your phone pretty easily. Here are the steps to download and save photos and videos you have uploaded yourself:
Saving Individual Posts
- Launch the Instagram app on your phone and navigate to the post in your feed that you want to save. This could be a photo, video, or multi-photo carousel.
- Tap the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner of the post.
- A menu will open up – tap on “Save”.
- The post will now be saved to a private collection on your profile called “Saved”. You can access all your saved posts anytime by going to your profile and tapping the bookmark icon.
This method lets you save Instagram posts on a case-by-case basis. It’s great for saving your best or favorite photos to look back on later.
Saving All Original Photo Versions
One downside of posting photos on Instagram is it compresses and resizes the images, lowering their resolution. When you upload a photo, the original full-resolution version only remains in your camera roll.
If you want to save the original quality photos every time you post, there’s a setting for that:
- Go to your profile and tap the three lines “hamburger” menu icon in the top right.
- Tap “Settings”.
- Tap “Account”.
- Turn on the switch for “Original Photos”.
Now, whenever you post a new photo, the original uncompressed version from your camera roll will be saved there again so you have both copies. This ensures you have the highest resolution files for editing, printing or other uses.
Saving Photos and Videos from Other Instagram Accounts
Unfortunately, downloading photos or videos posted by other accounts is more complicated. The app does not provide a direct way to save someone else’s content to your own camera roll.
Here are a few workarounds and tricks to save posts from other Instagram users:
Screenshot Method
The easiest manual workaround is to simply take a screenshot of the post. To do this:
- Open the Instagram post you want to save – it can be a photo, video, carousel, or reel.
- Take a screenshot on your phone as you normally would. For iPhone, press the Side button + Volume up button simultaneously. For Android, press Power + Volume down.
- The screenshot will be saved to your camera roll or gallery automatically.
The major caveat is that screenshots only capture what is displayed on screen. So photos and videos will be lower quality than the original file.
Screen Recording Method (For Videos)
If you want to save another user’s Instagram video post, you can create a screen recording to capture the playback in high quality:
- Open the Instagram video you want to download on your phone.
- Start a screen recorder. On iPhone, you can use the built-in screen recording function. On Android, use a third party recorder app.
- Hit play on the Instagram video and let the screen recorder capture the playback. Make sure system audio is enabled.
- Stop the screen recording after the video ends. The high quality clip will be saved to your camera roll.
Third-Party Apps
There are a number of apps in both the App Store and Google Play Store that allow saving of Instagram photos, videos, and stories to your phone gallery. Some popular options include:
- InstaSave – Available on iOS and Android. Lets you download photo, video, and story posts.
- Story Saver – iOS app specifically for saving Instagram and Snapchat stories.
- Repost App – Android app with option to download all post types.
I recommend thoroughly researching any third-party apps, reading reviews, and looking for concerns around potential privacy issues or terms of service violations before installing anything not officially sanctioned by Instagram.
Saving Instagram Stories to Your Camera Roll
In addition to standard posts, you may want to save Instagram stories which disappear after 24 hours. Here are the best ways to download both your own stories and stories from other accounts:
Saving Your Own Stories
- In the Instagram app, tap your profile picture to open your stories tray.
- Tap the story you want to save to open it.
- Tap the three dots “more” menu in the bottom right corner.
- Select either “Save Story” to save the entire thing as one video, or “Save” to save each story slide individually.
- Your saved stories will automatically appear in your camera roll.
Saving Other People’s Stories
Unfortunately there is no built-in option to save someone else’s stories. You have two options:
- Use a screen recording to capture video clips from stories just like saving regular videos.
- Utilize a third-party story saver app – again be very mindful of potential privacy intrusions or terms violations.
- Take screenshots of individual story slides (ineffective for videos, but works for photos).
So in summary, while Instagram only lets you officially save your own content, there are workarounds like screenshots, screen recordings, and third-party apps to download other people’s posts. Proceed thoughtfully and ethically here.
Frequently Asked Questions About Saving Instagram Posts
Here are answers to some common questions about downloading Instagram photos, videos, and stories:
Does saving posts decrease engagement on the original?
No, simply saving, downloading, or backing up someone else’s post to your own phone does not decrease or alter engagement on the original post in any way. Instagram’s metrics and algorithms will not be impacted.
Is it illegal to save content from other users?
Instagram’s terms prohibit “downloading or republishing the content from the service”, so downloading other people’s content strictly speaking goes against their terms. However, there is little risk of legal action just for personal offline access. But refrain from mass downloading or reposting content without permission.
How can I improve screenshot quality?
Try using editing apps like Snapseed or Adobe Lightroom to sharpen clarity and adjust colors on screenshots. Some retouching apps also have tools to enhance low resolution images.
What causes lower image quality when saving Instagram photos?
Compression to reduce file size along with reformatting to square aspect ratio reduces image quality on Instagram. Screenshots also capture much lower quality than original files. Enabling “Original Photos” prevents compression.
Can I transfer my saved Instagram posts to my computer?
Yes, you can connect your phone to your computer via USB and transfer over saved photos and videos like regular files. You can also upload downloads from your camera roll to cloud storage like Google Drive or iCloud and then access them on a computer.
Are there any apps to batch download my entire Instagram feed?
Some third party services claim to allow bulk downloading entire feeds. However, these likely violate Instagram’s terms of service so use with great caution, if at all. Manual saving of select posts is the safest approach.
Conclusion
I hope this detailed guide provides all the necessary techniques to successfully save any Instagram photos, videos, and stories you want to keep in your phone’s camera roll or gallery. While downloading other users’ content requires workarounds, you have full capability to backup your own posts using Instagram’s built-in tools.
Let me know if you have any other questions! I’m happy to provide clarification or additional details on the safest and most ethical ways to save Instagram content to your mobile device.
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