Table of Content
You’re on Instagram, scrolling through your feed and find the perfect design idea, travel photo, recipe or some other form of inspiration. But before you realize it, you lose the photo in your feed, and it’s gone forever.
What are your options?
- Screenshot the post in low quality and have to crop out the parts you don’t like.
- Use Google Chrome’s “Inspect” tool to find and save the image in the source code.
Both of these options work to download Instagram photos, but they’re cumbersome, confusing and hard for non-tech-savvy users.
What’s the better option?
We’ll explain how you can use simple tools for your Instagram photo download needs that are fast, easy to use, free and make organization a priority.
Why Download Instagram Photos?
IG is the world’s social media search engine, offering access to photos from 2+ billion accounts worldwide. But instead of searching through text and blogs, you’re searching through photos for inspiration for your:
- Fashion and beauty ideas
- Fitness routine
- Food and recipes
- Interior design
- Travel itinerary
Instagram is the new mood board, offering options for trendsetters to keep up with what’s in style, learn from others and gain inspiration.
One reason to download Instagram photos is to save memories that you might otherwise lose. For example, we recently went to a wedding and everyone was taking photos (including us). My feed was overrun with amazing shots that others had of friends, family and us dancing.
I could have screenshotted the photos, but I used a tool to download the photos without bothering other people to send them to me. Losing these memories when someone deletes their account or removes them from IG wasn’t an option for me.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration, curating content, conducting brand research or creating digital scrapbooks, Instagram is the go-to social media network.
What Instagram Lets You (and Doesn’t Let You) Do
Meta, the owner of Instagram, has limited features that allow you to “keep” photos that others share:
- Save: Go to the image you like, open it up and then hit the “bookmark” icon on the right of the screen.
- Collections: Add the “saved photo” to your collections so that you can organize the photos.
While this feature does work to save photos, the images remain only on your account and are not downloaded to your device. If the person removes the posts that you save, they’re gone forever.
It’s best if you download high-quality images and save them offline so that you can access them whenever you wish.
But keep in mind that you do not own the copyright to these photos and never want to imitate another person online.
How to Download Instagram Photos the Easy Way
Screenshots offer low-quality image saves that you have to crop to save just the photo. You can use an Instagram photo download tool to:
- Save your images
- Organize your downloads
It’s so easy to get started.
1. Go to your favorite tool (I’m using https://mystorysaver.com/)
2. Enter the URL where the photo is located or the username
3. Enter “nike” as an example
4. Wait for all of the images and videos to display
5. Tap “Download image,” or “video” if you want to download a video
You can now organize the photos however you wish. Photos are downloaded in high-quality format, unlike screenshots, and you don’t have to use a browser or other complicated way to save these memories.
Best Practices and Tips for Your Instagram Photo Download
Theft (using other people’s content without permission or licensing) can lead to a boycott of your account or legal trouble. Respect copyright and privacy laws by:
- Crediting creators when reposting content.
- Removing content when owners request it be removed.
- Using the content for personal inspiration and not commercial use.
If you follow these guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to responsible use of photos you download from Instagram.
The Takeaway
Don’t wait to download Instagram photos because they can be gone in the blink of an eye. Downloading photos and images allows you to keep these memories forever. Just remember that if you don’t own the copyright to these images, you can’t use them commercially.