Instagram is, without a doubt, the most popular visual platform of the modern era. With hundreds of thousands of beautiful, aesthetically pleasing photos available with just a swipe of your finger, there’s a chance you’ll come across a few you’d like to save on your iPhone.
Whether you want to download your Instagram pics for safekeeping, save a picture you were tagged in by a friend, or screenshot an image to share later, there are a couple of rules and regulations to keep in mind.
At this time, Instagram only allows you to directly download your own images through an automatic save tool (which we’ll dive more into later). You don’t have the option to save or download other people’s posts or Stories.
The reason there is no option to save photos from other accounts is to prevent copyright issues. If you’ve taken a photo or video and posted it on Instagram, you are the owner of that content. Therefore, you have the right to stop other people from using your content without your permission.
If you do believe someone is using your content without your consent, Instagram has a form you can fill out to take action.
Because of its strict copyright rules, Instagram recommends that if you do save another person’s photo and repost it on your account, you get that person’s permission first or at least give them credit for the content.
The only time you don’t have to worry about infringing on copyright issues is when you save your own Instagram photos. Because you are the owner of the content, there’s no need to get special permission or consent from anyone else.
If you want to save your photos from Instagram, the good news is that you don’t have to go through and save them all one by one, as long as you have the Save Original Photos feature in your account turned on.
Here’s how to automatically save all of your Instagram photos to your iPhone:
When this toggle is turned on, every photo you post will be automatically saved to your iPhone’s Camera Roll.
If you want to save the Instagram photos you’ve shared or posted to your Story, there’s a simple setting in your Story Controls to automatically save your images.
Here’s how to turn it on:
And voila! Your Instagram Story images will be automatically saved to your Camera Roll. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to have that feature on, you’ll have to remember to do the following to save your images before they disappear from the 24-hour Story mark:
Following these steps will save a single photo to your iPhone’s Camera Roll. If you want to save all the photos and videos from your Story, you can select the Save Story option instead of Save Photo. Doing this will download your Story in a video format to your Camera Roll.
Even if you’re not automatically saving Story photos to your iPhone’s Camera Roll, they’re automatically saved to your Instagram Story Archive — so long as you have that feature turned on.
Here’s how to check if you’re saving your Stories to the Archive:
Once your photos and videos are automatically saved to your Story Archive, saving them to your iPhone Camera Roll is simple. Here’s how:
Doing this will save the photo directly to your Camera Roll.
Since some of the processes for downloading your photos can be a little tedious, you may be toying with the idea of just downloading all of your Instagram photos at once — but is that even possible?
Yes. To download all of your Instagram data at once, you’ll need to migrate to your desktop.
Here’s how to download all of your Instagram photos from your computer:
How long it takes to receive your download depends on how much data you have. The more data that’s linked to your account, the longer it will take to receive an email with all of your photos and videos. But once you have it, all you have to do is save it to your computer.
There are no legal issues to wade through when it comes to saving your own content, but what if you want to download a photo from someone else’s account?
Remember, the golden rule of avoiding copyright infringement on Instagram is to ask the creator’s permission and give them credit if you repost elsewhere. Once you have that, there are two options for saving the photo to your Camera Roll.
The simplest way to save an Instagram photo from someone else’s account is to take a screenshot of it. When you screenshot anything on your iPhone, it’s automatically saved to your Camera Roll and your Screenshots folder.
Here’s how to take a screenshot of someone else’s Instagram photo:
Another option for downloading Instagram photos to your iPhone is to use a third-party app. For the purposes of this guide, we’ll show you how to save an Instagram photo with the app Inscopy.
Free and available in the App Store, Inscopy has over 2,000 reviews and four and a half stars. Using an interface similar to Instagram, it allows you to download photos and videos — both from Stories and your feed — directly to your Camera Roll.
Here’s how to use it:
Doing this will automatically download the photo to your Camera Roll.
Whether you want to collect all of your favorite posts from other accounts on your iPhone or just learn how to save your Stories so you can reminisce forever, we hope this guide taught you all the tips and tricks for saving photos from Instagram.