Save Reels, feed videos and carousel clips as clean MP4 files, at the resolution Instagram actually stored.
How to download from Instagram
1
Copy the Reel or post link
In the app, tap the paper plane icon and choose Copy link. On the web, open the post and copy the address. Either one gives you a link with /reel/ or /p/ in the middle.
2
Paste it into the box
Drop it in above. The share sheet adds a long igshid parameter on the end, and that's harmless. We ignore everything after the shortcode.
3
Choose your file and save
We show the available renditions with file sizes. Click one and the MP4 downloads. On iPhone it lands in Files, on Android in Downloads.
Instagram tools
Different kinds of Instagram content behave differently once you try to save them, so each one gets its own page.
Instagram has collected a lot of different video surfaces over the years, and each one stores its media a little differently. Here's what this downloader covers.
Reels
Vertical clips up to 90 seconds, stored at 1080x1920 when the uploader posted at that size. Reels are the most common thing people save here, and they come through with their audio track attached.
Feed videos
Regular in feed video posts, usually square at 1080x1080 or portrait at 1080x1350. These predate Reels and behave the same way, though older ones can top out at 640px wide.
Carousel posts
A swipeable post can mix photos and videos. We pull every video slide in the carousel and list them separately, so you can take just the one you wanted instead of all ten.
IGTV and long form video
Instagram folded IGTV into regular video, but old /tv/ links still resolve. Longer uploads are often served at a lower bitrate, so expect a softer picture than a short Reel of the same resolution.
What isn't covered
Stories from private accounts, close friends posts and anything behind a follow request stay off limits. Public Stories expire after 24 hours, and once they're gone there's nothing left to fetch.
A practical guide to Instagram video
Why Instagram quality varies so much
Instagram re-encodes every upload. That's not a flaw, it's how the platform keeps a billion videos streamable. The practical result is that the file you download is never the creator's original export, it's Instagram's compressed version of it. A Reel filmed on a recent iPhone and uploaded over wifi will look excellent. The same clip uploaded on one bar of mobile data can arrive noticeably soft.
Resolution isn't the whole story either. Bitrate matters just as much. Instagram targets a few megabits per second for Reels, which is plenty for a talking head and not really enough for fast motion like skating or drone footage. If a downloaded clip looks blocky during quick movement, that's compression, not the downloader.
Reels, feed video and the format differences
Reels are 9:16 vertical, 1080x1920 at best, and capped at 90 seconds. Feed video is more varied: square 1080x1080 posts from the older era, 4:5 portrait at 1080x1350, and the occasional 16:9 landscape upload that Instagram letterboxes. Knowing which you're dealing with matters if you plan to edit, because dropping a vertical Reel into a landscape timeline means black bars or a hard crop.
There's also a codec detail worth knowing. Instagram serves H.264 MP4 almost universally, which is the most compatible video format in existence. You won't need to convert anything. That's different from YouTube, where the best quality streams often come as VP9 or AV1 in a WebM container. Our format guide goes through the differences if you want the background.
Practical saving habits
Save the clip while you can. Reels get deleted, accounts go private, and songs get pulled for licensing reasons more often than people expect. If something's useful as a reference, grab it the day you find it. A 5 MB file costs you nothing to keep.
Organise as you go. Instagram shortcodes like C8xK2pQsL4m are meaningless names. Rename to something like creator-topic-2026-03 and you'll actually find it again. If you save a lot of reference material, one folder per project beats one giant Downloads pile.
And be careful about re-uploading. Instagram's own systems are fairly good at spotting a Reel that's been downloaded and re-posted without credit, and accounts that do it repeatedly get their reach cut. If you want to share someone's work, the built in share and repost tools keep the attribution attached automatically.
Instagram downloader questions
Usually 1080x1920 for a Reel shot and uploaded on a modern phone. Instagram re-encodes everything on upload, so if the creator posted a lower resolution file or uploaded over a weak connection, that smaller version is all that exists. We show you what's actually there rather than promising 4K that was never stored.
Instagram doesn't burn its own watermark into Reels the way TikTok does. If you see a username overlay it was baked in by the creator, often because the clip was exported from TikTok or CapCut first. That overlay is part of the video pixels and can't be removed by any downloader.
No. Private accounts approve their followers individually, and that decision deserves respect. This tool only reads publicly visible posts. If you follow a private account and want to keep a clip, ask the person who posted it. A screen recording without permission is still a copy they didn't agree to.
Yes, the MP4 includes the audio track as AAC. One thing to know: the music on a Reel is licensed to Instagram for playback inside the app. Re-uploading that audio elsewhere can trigger a copyright claim on YouTube or Facebook even though the file downloaded fine.
Paste the post link as normal. We scan every slide and list the videos we find, numbered in order. Pick the one you want. You don't need to work out which slide index it was or download the whole set to get one clip.
Usually the post was deleted, set to private after you saw it, or restricted in your region. Try opening the link in a browser window where you're logged out. If Instagram asks you to sign in to see it, the post isn't public and the download won't work.
Public Stories from public accounts can often be fetched while they're live, which is a 24 hour window. After that Instagram removes them and there's nothing left to read. Stories from private accounts, and anything shared to Close Friends, are never accessible here.
There's no app to install and no login, so there are no credentials to leak. Everything runs in your browser over HTTPS. You never hand us an Instagram password, which also means nothing here can get your account flagged for suspicious third party access.
Legally, that depends on permission. The creator owns their footage, and reposting without credit is both rude and often a copyright problem. Short quoted clips with visible credit and a link back are the norm. For anything commercial, get written permission first.
New to this? The how it works guide walks through the whole process step by step, and the blog goes deeper on formats and quality. Before you save anything, it is worth reading our disclaimer on copyright and fair use.
