How to Download Your Instagram Data.

The short answer

To download your Instagram data, open Settings, go to Accounts Centre, choose Your information and permissions, then the download or export option. Pick the account, what to include, a format, a date range and media quality, then request the file. Instagram emails a link when it is ready.

That is the whole task for one person. For a brand, the more useful question is when to do it, and the answer is before anything changes hands: a new agency, a departing social lead, a login nobody can find. Exporting is part of how Operations protects an account, and on Instagram the request is worth making long before anyone needs the file.

Where the download lives now

Meta moved Download Your Information into Accounts Centre in October 2023. Its announcement said the tool was now centralised there, and that you could download information from a Facebook and an Instagram account at the same time, or from each one separately.

Meta said Accounts Centre sits in the Settings menu on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. That is the route to start from.

The menu names vary

The labels inside Accounts Centre have not stayed fixed. A US PIRG guide updated in 2024 calls the option Download Your Information, then Download or transfer information. A Tech2 guide updated in May 2026 describes it as Export your information, then Create export.

Treat both as the same tool. If your screen uses one name and a colleague’s uses the other, neither of you is in the wrong place.

Step 1: open Accounts Centre

In the Instagram app, go to your profile and tap the three-line menu. Tech2 says to choose Settings and activity, where you will see Accounts Centre. On a browser, the same menu sits under More.

Do this logged in as the account you want to export. For a brand, that means the brand account itself, not a personal account that happens to manage it. Have the password to hand, because PIRG says you need it to request the file, and keep the login protected with two-factor authentication on a device the business controls.

Step 2: find the export option

Inside Accounts Centre, open Your information and permissions. Choose Download your information or Export your information, depending on which label your version shows, and start a new request.

If Accounts Centre links more than one account, choose which the file covers. Meta says you can download a Facebook and an Instagram account together or separately, so pick the brand account on its own unless you deliberately want both.

Step 3: choose what to include

PIRG’s guide says you can download a complete copy or only certain parts, such as photos and messages.

For a handover archive, take everything. You can always ignore a folder later, and you cannot go back for something that was lost with the login.

There is one reason to hold back. NORC’s data donation instructions list the categories as including messages, personal information, and security and login information. Decide in advance who is allowed to hold that file, and keep it out of shared drives that everyone can open.

Step 4: pick where it goes

PIRG says you can send the file to your own device or to another service. TechCrunch reported in 2023 that Meta was expanding Transfer Your Information to Instagram, so you can export Instagram photos and videos and import them into another service such as Google Photos.

For an archive, download to a device and then store it somewhere the business controls. A transfer is useful for moving media, but it is not the same as keeping a full record.

Step 5: set the format, date range and quality

PIRG says Instagram offers the file in HTML or JSON, and lets you choose the media quality and the date range.

PIRG describes both formats as generally user friendly. For an archive, our settings would be:

• Format: HTML if a person will read the archive, JSON if the file is going into another tool.
• Date range: all time, unless you only need a specific period.
• Media quality: high, if the photos and videos might ever be reused.

PIRG says the file size depends on the information and media quality you choose, and cites Instagram as saying a download typically needs about 2.5GB of space.

Step 6: confirm and wait

Check the email address the notification will go to, then create the file. Tech2 says you will be asked for the account password at this point, and that you then receive an email saying the request is in progress.

The file is not instant. PIRG says it can take up to 30 days for the email with the download link to arrive, and Tech2 also gives 30 days.

That wait is the main reason to export early. A request made the week an agency leaves may not land until after the agency has gone.

Step 7: download the file before it expires

When the email arrives, follow the link and download the file. PIRG says that once the email arrives you have four days to download it. NORC’s instructions say Instagram may ask for your password again at this point.

Four days is easy to miss. Put the download in someone’s calendar the day the request goes in.

Why a brand should export before any handover

Picture the usual handover problems. A freelancer’s phone holds the two-factor codes. The agency’s email is the recovery address. The person who knew the password has left.

An export does not fix any of that. What it does is make sure a copy of the account’s information, from photos to messages, sits somewhere the business owns, whatever happens to the login next.

Make the export a line on every offboarding list, next to changing the password and the recovery email. If handovers are where your accounts keep getting stuck, that is a workflow problem more than an Instagram one, and it is what our workflow and ops consulting is built to fix.

What good looks like

A brand that handles this well treats the export as routine, not as an emergency measure.

• An export is requested at every agency change and every staff exit that touches the account.
• One named person owns the request and the download.
• The file lives in storage the business controls, labelled with the account and the date.
• The archive is refreshed on a fixed rhythm, such as every quarter, so it is never far out of date.

Next step

Request an export of your main Instagram account today, before anything forces you to, and note the date the link arrives.

Then check the rest of the handover list. If a username change is part of a rebrand or a new agency’s plan, our guide to changing an Instagram username covers how to do it.

If your social process is slowing down good ideas, NBK can help rebuild the workflow behind the content.