If you have hundreds or even thousands of photos stored in your Instagram feed, you may be wondering if there’s a way to backup your images or “free yourself” from Instagram, should you decide to change platforms. Maybe you don’t love that it’s a Facebook product. Maybe you don’t have duplicate copies of the photos on your computer. For whatever reason, it’s your data and you should be able to take it with you.
Great news! Now there’s a way to easily download all of your Instagram photos without using a 3rd party app or service. Here’s how you do it:
1. Go to Instagram.com in your web browser. (Not the app on your phone.) Login with your username and password.
2. Go to your profile page. This can be accomplished by clicking on the “person” icon in the top right corner.
3. Locate the “gear” icon beside the “Edit Profile” option. This will float a menu on the center of the screen. Choose “Privacy and Security” from this menu.
4. Scroll down to “Data Download” and click “Request Download.”
5. You may need to type in your email address and then password to complete the request.
Once the request is filed, you’ll receive a link in your email to download all of your photos and other data in a single file. Instagram notes this may take up to 48 hours, though in testing we found the response time is much quicker.
Save the file to your hard drive. When you “unzip” or decompress the file, you’ll find everything intact. Photos and the like are organized into folders by date. Enjoy your new data portability!
