How to Download Your Own Instagram Reels, Photos and Data

Your Instagram content is valuable: photos from trips, Reels you worked hard on, Stories from special days. Platforms can change, accounts can be hacked or disabled, and phones can be lost. Instagram provides official ways to back up your own material, and they cost nothing. Here is how to use them.

Option 1: Save a single Reel to your camera roll

For your own Reels, the quickest method is inside the app:

1. Open your profile and tap the Reels tab.
2. Open the Reel you want to keep.
3. Tap the three-dot menu.
4. Choose Save to camera roll or Download if shown.

Menu names change with app updates, so look for a similar option if the wording is different. Before you publish a Reel, the editing screen also has a download or save-draft option, which is the best time to keep the original, high-quality version.

Option 2: Turn on automatic saving

In Instagram settings, find Archiving and downloading (or similar). You can enable the option to save original photos or story posts to your gallery automatically. This creates a local copy every time you post, without extra effort.

Option 3: Use the Archive

Instagram automatically archives your expired Stories if the setting is on. To view them, go to your profile, tap the menu, and choose Archive. From there you can share old stories again, add them to Highlights, or download them. You can also archive feed posts and Reels to hide them from your profile without deleting them.

Option 4: Download Your Information (full backup)

This is the complete export, ideal for backing up an entire account.

1. Open Instagram and go to Settings and privacy.
2. Open Accounts Center.
3. Select Your information and permissions.
4. Tap Download your information.
5. Choose Download or transfer information and select your Instagram account.
6. Pick what to include: all available information or specific types such as posts, Reels, Stories, messages or comments.
7. Select a date range, your preferred format (HTML or JSON) and media quality.
8. Confirm your email address and submit the request.

Instagram prepares the file in the background. This can take from a few minutes to several days for large accounts. You will get an email with a link, which usually expires after a few days, so download it promptly. For security you may need to re-enter your password.

What is in the export?

• Your posts, Reels and Stories as media files.
• Captions, comments and likes data.
• Messages, followers and following lists.
• Account details and settings history.

The HTML format is easy to open in a browser. JSON is better if you want to process the data with other software.

Keep your backup safe

• Store the zip file on an external drive and in a trusted cloud service.
• Use a strong, unique password and two-factor authentication on the email account that receives the link.
• Treat the export as private: it may contain messages and personal details.
• Only download from the official link in the email from Instagram, and check that the sender is genuine.

What about other people's public content?

Official tools only cover your own data. For public videos from other creators that you want to keep for personal viewing, use the in-app Save feature or a browser-based tool such as our downloader, and respect the rules in our copyright overview.

A simple backup routine

1. Turn on automatic saving of originals.
2. Keep important raw footage on your phone or cloud storage, not only on Instagram.
3. Request a full export every few months.
4. Organise backups by year so they are easy to find.

Summary

Instagram gives you several official ways to protect your own work: saving individual Reels, automatic originals, the Archive and a full Download Your Information export. Spending ten minutes setting these up can save you from losing years of memories or business content.