Download Pics Off Instagram Mac

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There are tens of millions of photos housed on Instagram, yet there’s no built-in way to download photos directly to your computer or phone. You can bookmark photos or “like” them. . . but that’s nowhere near as useful as downloading the picture file itself. So let’s go over the various ways to do that!

Why Doesn’t Instagram Let You Download Photos in the App?

Instagram makes this difficult primarily to protect the individual Instagram user’s copyright on their pictures. That said, there are still many ways around it. For better or for worse, once a picture goes up on Instagram, it’s open season for other people who want to take a few extra steps to download it.

There are a number of reasons you might want to download Instagram photos.

Maybe they’re genuinely your photos and you simply want to have the actual image file to reuse or store elsewhere.

Maybe it’s someone else’s photo that you just really like and would like to save outside of Instagram.

Maybe you want to repost it on your own social accounts, although that comes with some legal risk.

Regardless, the steps to let you do any of these can be found below! We hope you find this guide helpful.

How to Save Instagram.com Photos on PC or Mac

How to Download Photos from INSTAGRAM on PC How to save Images from INSTAGRAM on PC Updated version: https://youtu.be/urG0G7OnmeI.

It allows you to upload, download, edit and share photos and videos with others on your mobile phones. But, you can not download photos and videos directly from Instagram to Mac. If you want to download Instagram photos and videos to Mac, then you can use third-party apps such as Picbackman.com, Instaport and much more. May 04, 2020.

How to download a single Instagram photo on Instagram.com:

    1. Create an account within the Instagram app if you haven’t already.
    2. Log in on Instagram.com.
    3. Find the photo you’d like to save.
      1. You can only see photos from your current friends on Instagram.com. There is no option to explore other photos.
      2. To get around this, you can navigate directly to another user’s URL using the template “https://instagram.com/_________”, inserting their username in the blank space.
    4. Click the gray ellipses button. It will be below the bottom right corner of the photo or to the right of the “Comment” area (an ellipsis is three periods in a row, like so: . . .)
    5. The “View Photo Page” option will be in the menu that appears. Click “View Photo Page”.
    6. What you do on the Photo Page depends on your browser.
      • Firefox: Right click on the photo and choose “View Background Image” to open another page that shows only the photo. You can then right click it again and click “Save Image as…”
      • Chrome: Right click on the photo and choose “Inspect Element.” A scary-looking sidebar will pop up on the right side, but don’t panic! It’s actually simple. There will be a small section in blue. The URL for your image will be in parenthesis beginning with “https://” and then ending with “.jpg.” Paste this URL into your browser’s address bar and hit enter. You’ll arrive at just the picture; you can then right click it again and click “Save Image as…”
    7. Follow your usual process for saving downloaded files and photographs on your computer. You’re done!

How To Download Pics From Instagram On Mac

If all else fails, you can take a screenshot of the photo, although this might require you to do some photo cropping later.

On Windows, you can use the “Prt Sc” (print screen) button on your keyboard to save a screenshot of everything on your screen. It will be in your clipboard, ready to be pasted into a photo editing application and saved.

On Mac, you can press “Shift + Command + 4” to use your mouse cursor to drag a box over the area you’d like to screenshot. It will be in your clipboard, ready to be pasted into a photo editing application and saved.

How to save all of your own Instagram photos as a backup:

There are several services dedicated to helping you easily download every photo on an Instagram profile at once. The most popular and easiest to use service is Instaport.

Within a couple minutes, you can sort through your photo archive and download every single one in a ZIP file. Pretty easy, right?

How to download all of someone else’s Instagram photos:

The best method for downloading all of someone else’s Instagram photos is the same as for your own: you’ll want to use Instaport. Simply plug in their username or URL and you’re good to go.

This also illustrates just how easy it is for someone else to grab your Instagram content if they really wanted to. And as our article “How to Contact Instagram” describes, you’re pretty unlikely to reach any kind of resolution on a complaint filed with Instagram support.

How to Download Instagram Photos on iOS iPhone

Instagram makes this process as difficult as possible for iOS users. There are different apps that have claimed to make this easier at various points in time, but most of them have been removed from the app store.

New ones tend to crop up now and then, but never stay up for long.

The workaround that is guaranteed to do the trick on any iPhone, without downloading any additional apps, is this process:

  1. Go to the Instagram photo that you want to save.
  2. Screenshot it by pressing your Home button and your Sleep/Wake button at the same time.
  3. Go to your “Photos” app and pull up the screenshot image you just took.
  4. The bottom of your screen should have four buttons. Tap the one that looks kind of like an abacus (three circles on three lines, like sliders).
  5. On the bottom left of the new menu that appears, there should be a little square with arrows circling it. This is the “Crop and Rotate” button. Tap it.
  6. Adjust the frame until all the Instagram page stuff surrounding the actual image is cropped out.
  7. Tap “Done” in the bottom right.

We definitely agree that it’s annoying that this is the only method that is guaranteed to work, but it’s what iOS users of Instagram must do if they want to download a picture.

How to Download Instagram Photos on Android Phone

The easiest way to download Instagram photos directly on your Android device is using the app QuickSave for Instagram.

The process for using it is simple:

  1. Make sure QuickSave is running on your phone first.
  2. Open Instagram and choose “Copy / Share URL” on the photo or video that you want to save. You can save multiple photos or videos at once.
  3. Return to QuickSave. Download the photo or video, then swipe to dismiss, repost, or share to an Instagram account of your own.

You’re done!

Remember: using any of these methods doesn’t protect you from getting in trouble for using other people’s intellectual property without their permission (i.e. using their photos and videos).


Instagram was built to be used on smartphones. The dev team have gone to great lengths to make sure that the users continue using their mobile apps. While Instagram does have a functional web page, you can only use it for surfing pics. This is all fine and dandy for many users, but Instagram is a platform like no other. It is used by influencers and professional photographers from across the globe. These creative minds like to edit their photos before uploading them and this is where Instagram’s inherent limitation comes to the forefront.

If you are using a DSLR or something like the GoPro, you will first need to upload the images to your Windows or Mac computer, edit them, transfer it back to your smartphone and then upload them. A bit tedious but that’s exactly what most users have to go through on a daily basis. While regular users are fine with using mobile apps for retouching their pics, not every one is happy with the current arrangement.

Fortunately, I discovered a couple of ways to resolve this issue. By the end of this guide, you will know how to upload to Instagram using your Windows or Mac computers.

Let’s begin.

Also Read:9 Best Video Editing Apps for Instagram

1. Upload to Instagram Using Chrome

Most of us are using Chrome as our default browser of choice, so let me begin with the same. Launch Chrome on either your Windows or MacOS powered computer. This trick will work on both operating systems. Go to Instagram’s homepage and sign in using your email ID or Facebook.

Not many people know about this but Chrome has a built-in code inspector tool that will pop up when you press the CTRL+SHIFT+I (that’s an “i”) keyboard shortcut. You will also find Developer Tools option in Chrome’s More Tools–>Developer Tools.

You will now see a sidebar open in the right where you can view the entire code of the page you are on. The Instagram homepage will be on the left. Don’t get too confused. If you don’t know coding, the good news is that you don’t need to know it either. You are looking for a smartphone or table icon on the upper left corner of the right-pane where the code exists. When you find it, click on it.

Read: How to Change Browser Location Country

This is the user agent icon. Basically, you are telling your browser, the good old Chrome, that you would like to use it as if you were using it on your smartphone. Developers use this tool to troubleshoot sites to find how everything looks on mobile browsers or apps and whether anything is broken. If yes, they look at the code to find the issue. Cool, huh?

You can now use Instagram like you would on your smartphone. In fact, Chrome offers a number of built-in options to choose from like iPhone X, Pixel 2, and so on. You can choose any or let it stay in Responsive mode.

At this point, please refresh your page (press F5 on keyboard) because only then you will see the upload button with other options in the navbar area, just like you see them on your smartphone. It should look something like this.

You know the rest of the story. You click on the ‘+’ icon to open file explorer on your Windows or MacBook and choose the image that you want to upload. Instagram, thinking that you are still using a smartphone, will do the needful.

The method is free as it doesn’t involves downloading or using any other third-party software which is definitely a plus, however, it is also very limiting because you can only upload images. There is no way to upload galleries or even single video files.

Also Read:How to Post Vertical Photos on Instagram Without Cropping

2. Upload to Instagram Using Safari

If you are on a MacBook and using Safari as your preferred browser, follow the below steps. One of my friends uses Safari on his Windows-powered laptop. So, again, this method will work on both the platforms. Launch Safari now. Go to Preferences, click on the Advanced tab and select Show Develop menuin menu bar.

Once it is enabled, you can log in to your Instagram account and select the User Agent of your choice from the newly added Develop menu inside Safari. It is not necessary that you must select an Apple device, it can be any smartphone.

Now, go to Instagram’s homepage if you haven’t already and log in. You should be able to view Instagram just like you do on your smartphone. You should see the familiar ‘+‘ icon in the middle of the navbar at the bottom. Click on it to begin uploading images.

Again, you cannot upload videos and images can only be uploaded one by one. You cannot bulk upload or tag locations and accounts. A bit limiting but works.

Also Read:The Best Ways To Download Videos From Instagram

3. Upload to Instagram Using Hootsuite

By now, you know that the above-mentioned methods, though they work, are limited in their functionality. This is why you should consider going for a third-party app like Hootsuite. A social media management app that will not only let you post to Instagram, but also schedule posts, add text and location tags, and accounts. In fact, Hootsuite will collect valuable data like comments, likes, and followers and break it down in easy to understand reports for you to analyze later. A real plus for Instagram users with business accounts.

There are many other options available in the market but I would recommend Hootsuite because it can also be used to manage a number of other social media profiles like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. It was built to be a social media productivity suite which offers a scalable solution. Particularly useful for influencers and social media managers with business accounts.

Keeping in mind the image editing requirements of Instagram users, Hootsuite also offers many tools to edit your images before you schedule or publish them like crop, effects, filters, adjust sharpness/brightness, focus, red-eye, and many others. I wouldn’t say that Hootsuite is a complete image editor but it is very powerful and social media managers will be satisfied with the tools it has to offer.

It also connects with a number of third-party apps via API like all the popular cloud storage platforms, Adobe, and so on. Hootsuite is free for up to 3 social media accounts, not necessarily Instagram, after which pricing begins at $29/month.

Download

Hootsuite not only removes the limitations we saw earlier with the browser method but adds several powerful and much-needed features, all in one compact UI. And, it has apps for smartphones too.

4. Upload to Instagram Using Emulator

We are talking about Bluestacks here, a popular Android emulator that will let you install and use any app from the Play Store on your Windows and MacOS computers. What Bluestacks does is create a virtual environment to mimic the Android platform, and then installs Play Store app inside it. It is free to use.

You will begin by downloading the software for your PC using the link below. Once it is installed, you will create an account and log in to Play Store using your preferred Google ID. Once inside, you will see a list of all the apps and games that you have currently installed on your smartphone. Use the search feature to locate Instagram and install it.

Sign in to your Instagram account just like you would do on your smartphone. Once you are in, you can use Instagram exactly like you use it on your Android. This means you can now use your Windows or Mac computer to upload images to Instagram.

While it is still similar to how we changed user agent on our browser, Bluestacks offers some additional benefits. There is still no support for uploading videos, but you can add captions, tag accounts and locations, use filters, and upload carousel posts.

Download Pics Off Instagram

Upload to Instagram from Windows and Mac

Download Instagram Pics And Videos

If you want to be quick and don’t need to make too many changes or use tags, then you can use the browser method. It works on both Chrome and Safari and should also work on Firefox though I haven’t tested it.

Download Pics Off Instagram Macbook

If you need more options and the ability to use the mobile version of Instagram, along with some other Android apps too, Bluestacks is a very powerful Android emulator.

Download Profile Pic Instagram

If you are an influencer, photographer or a social media manager, you cannot go wrong with Hoosuite. The free version is itself feature-packed and it was built to be scalable.