We all love Instagram. It is an amazing social media platform for sharing visual content and finding new visual content. However, Instagram content is often fleeting and quick-moving. Knowing how to save and download photos and posts is an extremely useful skill.You might want to save your Instagram photos for safety reasons or share them with others. You might also want to access content posted by other users. You might also want to save old photos and change your Instagram username so you can start over with a blank feed. Maybe you are just sick of Instagram and want to save all your photos before you delete your account.No matter what your reason for wanting to save Instagram photos, this step-by-step guide will show you how.How to save Instagram photos that you have created to your phoneInstagram makes it easy to save images that you have captured, filtered and edited in the Instagram app to you phone's photo collection.Open the Instagram app and go to your profile. Tap the person-shaped icon at the bottom of the screen or the profile photo. (Depending on the version of Instagram you have, what you see will vary.Click the person icon to access your Instagram account. Credit: instagramAfter you have navigated to your profile page, tap on the three horizontal lines icon in the top-right corner of your screen.Click here to confirm. Credit: instagramWhen the pop-up menu appears, choose to go into Settings. It's the first option on the list. Next, tap on "Account", then hit the "Original Photos", which will display if you are using an iOS device. Android users will be able to access the "Original posts" option.Click on "original photos" in your Instagram profile. Credit: InstagramInstagram now allows you to save your Instagram images automatically. Click the blue toggle to save original photos/posts.Annnd swipe Credit: InstagramOnce you have turned this option on, all photos posted on Instagram will be saved to your phone’s photo library. It's so convenient!How to save Instagram photos from other usersIt is easy to save any Instagram photo or video (as long the user is public) into a private section of your Instagram app. This will allow you to view them again whenever you like. It is important to note that if you save a post by someone (regardless of whether they follow you), they won't be able tell you that you saved it.Tap the bookmark icon below a post to save it. You can add the post to your "Saved" general folder.To save your favourite posts, create an Instagram collection. Credit: instagramYou can also save a post to a collection in your private saved area by tapping and holding the bookmark icon. The pop-up displays all the Instagram collections that you have created. You can also create a new collection. Tap the "plus" symbol to do this.Create collections of your favourite images. Credit: instagramTo see the saved picture or video and the collections that you have created, tap on your profile again by tapping the person-shaped icon at the bottom of your screen. Next, tap on the "Save" option in the pop up menu. This will display all of the bookmarked content.Instagram collections are a great feature that is often overlooked. Credit: InstagramAs we have already stated, only you can see the content you've saved and the collections you've made. Reminder: Other Instagram users won't know that you saved their content.How to download Instagram photos from your desktop browserInstagram doesn't allow you to download photos from other users. This is due to very serious copyright issues. There is an easy way to get it done on a desktop browser. This is not a good idea.Open any Instagram image in a new browser tab to download it. You can also open the image without being signed in to your Instagram account by right clicking on it and selecting "Copy Link address." Right click on the image to open it. A menu will appear. Click "View Page Source".Going to the backend of an Instagram post. Credit: screenshot / instagramThis will open the page source code in a new browser tab. Scroll down the code or use the "Find" feature of your browser to find the first.jpg link.A gorgeous backend. Credit: screenshotCopy the URL text between the quotation marks or speech. Copy the URL and paste it into a new browser tab. After the image loads, you can right-click to save it to your computer just like you would with a normal photo on the internet.This guide will show you how to save Instagram images to your phone and also save content from other accounts. You can save a recipe, bookmark an inspiring quote, helpful activism guide, and create mood boards in Pinterest style for your project.Check out these Instagram How-TosThis story was first published in July 2020, and it was updated in August 2021.
