How to Save Pictures from Instagram

A lot of users have uploaded millions and millions of photos to Instagram, making the app the world’s most popular photo sharing application. While you can “like” or bookmark/save a photo so you can revisit it later, you cannot download Instagram photos to your computer and/or device directly from Instagram the way you might by saving an image from a regular web page.

Instagram has now created a saving feature built directly in the application. Although it only lets you bookmark the photo or video post tab, not actually download it to your device, it’s still better than nothing.

How To Use the New Save Tab on Instagram

The Save tab appears as a little bookmark icon on every user’s profile directly above the photo feed in the horizontal menu. You can not see the save tab on other users’ profiles, but you can see it on your own profile while signed in and This ensures that only you can see what you have saved.

To save any post on Instagram, look for the bookmark icon in the bottom right corner of the post and click on it. It will automatically be added to your save tab and the user who posted it will not get any notification. The photo has been saved, but if you want to organize your saved photos, tap the ‘Save to Collections’ pop up that comes up. Click on the plus icon to create your own collection.

To view, edit, or organize your saved Instagram photo, go to your profile and tap the bookmark icon. You can tap the plus icon to add new collections or move a saved photo to a new collection.

Take a Screenshot

This is the easiest unofficial way to quickly save a a copy of someone’s else’s Instagram photo. You can take a screenshot of the Instagram photo and then use a photo editing tool to crop it.

Third-Party Apps

If you research, you may find a third-party app that claims to help you to save or download Instagram photos. There is, however, no guarantee that these apps will work how you might expect it to, given that Instagram reviews all requests for API access and rejects anything that permits users to interact too heavily with the app, or anything that goes against their terms.

You might have a seriously frustrating time finding any type of third-party app that actually allows you to seamlessly download posts, and anything you actually do decide to download could be kind of shady deal for your privacy and/or security. It’ll be much better to go with any of the other options presented above.

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