Welcome to our Instagram Academy. Have you ever found a shot on your Instagram feed that won you over? A sunset over the sea, a breathtaking landscape, a running dog posted by someone you follow that you want as a wallpaper. Or perhaps you want to be sure you don’t lose the content you posted on your own account and want a backup copy.
How? In this lesson you will find out how to download photos from Instagram to your PC, both yours and those posted by other people.
If you are new here, in our Academy you will find plenty of other lessons on Instagram, on SEO, on Facebook and on growth hacking.
In our Instagram Academy you will find other lessons on how to schedule Instagram posts, how to use Instagram for business, whether and where to buy Instagram followers, how to use bots, how to make money on Instagram and much more…
Let’s not waste any more time and get to this lesson’s subject: downloading Instagram photos to your PC.
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How to download Instagram photos: through the browser
If your aim is to back up every photo you have posted to your profile onto your PC, Instagram made that possible in April 2018. How? Very simply.
- Open your browser and go to Instagram Web on your PC (click here).
- Log into your account with your credentials, or through Facebook.
- Once on your profile, click the person icon at the top right and choose the cog icon to the right of the “Edit profile” button.
- In the left-hand menu select “Privacy and Security”, scroll to “Data download” and click “Request download”.
At that point Instagram asks for your password and then emails you a link for downloading all the photos on your profile. Preparing the archive can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, depending on how much you have published.
Once you have the link, Instagram gives you 4 days to download. Click the link and choose “Download data” on the page that opens automatically. The system asks you to log into Instagram on the PC and then you can click “Download data” again and save all your content.
Free image from Pixabay
Automatic Instagram backup to the cloud
Another way to keep your Instagram photos safe is to save them to the cloud. The advantage? You can reach them at any time and, when you need them, download the ones you want — or all of them — to your PC. A considerable saving of space, don’t you think?
The advantages don’t stop there. This is a fully automated operation. The web offers the option of automatically backing up your Instagram photos without you lifting a finger. How? Through IFTTT, an online service that downloads Instagram photos to the cloud — to Google Drive, Dropbox or OverDrive, to name a few of the more common ones — so you can reach them whenever you like.
How does IFTTT work? Very simply. Go to the service’s main page and log in, or create a new account. It lets you connect your Instagram profile to one of the clouds above once you authorise it. To make sure everything worked, click “My recipes”: if the chosen cloud is in colour, the service is active; if the image is black and white, something did not go as it should. To activate it, tap the power icon on the right.
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How to download other people’s Instagram photos to a PC
The photos you want to save from Instagram are not yours but were published by an Instagram user you follow? No problem. Here too the answers are easy and quick. We suggest four: two free programs and two web services.
4K Stogram (Windows/macOS)
4K Stogram is free software for Windows and macOS that lets you save Instagram photos to your PC from an account other than your own. Once downloaded (from here) and set up on your PC, it lets you follow two accounts at once and download everything they publish free of charge. Just enter the handle of the account you care about and that is that. The program downloads the photos into an Images folder it creates on your PC. If you need to follow more accounts, 4K Stogram has released a Pro version for that, though it is paid.
Image from 4kdownload.com
JDownloader
Another option we suggest is JDownloader (download it here), software that not only saves Instagram photos to your PC but can download any file published online. Free and compatible with Windows, macOS and Linux, JDownloader makes saving simple and fast. How? Once installed, launch the program and tick “Enable or disable clipboard monitoring” at the top of the window. Then open Instagram for PC in your favourite browser, log into your account and find the user who posted the content you want. Now all you have to do is copy the URL and paste the link into JDownloader. A single click on “Play” starts saving the file into your PC’s “Download” folder.
DownloadGram Web
Don’t want to install a new program on your PC? Don’t worry, there is another way to download Instagram photos: it is called DownloadGram (go to the site).
It is a free service you use online, installing nothing, to back up photos to your PC. Go to DownloadGram’s main page: in the middle there is a large bar where you paste the URL of the Instagram image you want. One click and the photo is yours.
Image from downloadgram.com
DreDown
DreDown (go to the site) is a solid alternative to DownloadGram for downloading Instagram photos to your PC without installing anything. Unlike others it is an online service that needs no registration and it downloads content from the main platforms in use today (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo and Tumblr, to name a few), letting you choose the format. The process is similar to DownloadGram’s: copy the URL of the content you want and paste it into DreDown. Click the “DreDown” button next to the bar and within seconds the content is safe in your PC’s Download folder.
Conclusion
In this lesson of our Instagram Academy you discovered three ways to download Instagram photos and keep them on your PC: the first, offered recently by the network itself, builds an archive of every photo on your profile. The second, using the cloud, automatically backs up your content and keeps it safe. The third lets you save content that isn’t yours, through free, easy software or websites. What are you waiting for? All that is left is to pick the one that suits you best.
We will see you in the next lessons, where we will go deeper into other Instagram subjects you are sure to find interesting. Stay tuned and keep following your favourite Instagram Academy.
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