Instagram Reels have exploded in popularity, no doubt aided by the monumental interest in short form video on social media networks, particularly TikTok. However, while TikTok allows users to download short form videos posted on its network, Instagram didn’t, until now.
The Facebook-owned social network has confirmed that Instagram Reels download is finally possible on mobile. This will enable users to download Reels on their mobile devices, but there are a few caveats still.
Here’s how you can download Instagram Reels
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri used the social network’s new broadcast feature to announce that it’s now possible to download Instagram reels. However, this feature is only available to users in the US for now.
It’s also available on mobile only, so if you use Instagram on the web, you can’t download Reels. Reels can be downloaded only from public Instagram accounts, not private. Furthermore, users who have public accounts can decide if they want their Reels to be available for download.
Downloading an Instagram Reel is ismple enough. Just tap on the Share icon for a Reel and then select Download. It would then be saved to your camera roll. Reels will have a watermark with the Instagram logo and the name of the account that posted it.
This is similar to how TikTok does it. One of the reasons for TikTok’s massive popularity is that it allowed videos to be downloaded and posted on other networks. This brought people back to TikTok and helped grow the network even further. Instagram is now deploying a similar strategy so it would be interesting to see how that works out for it.
A few days ago, WhatsApp announced Broadcast Channels that allow people, brands, and celebrities to send one-way messages to followers. Now, that feature is coming to Instagram as well. This feature was first seen on Telegram, which allowed people to send one-way messages in groups.
Instagram’s Broadcast Channels feature will roll out more broadly to users starting this month. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this feature and a rollout plan on his Broadcast Channel on Instagram. Until now, the feature was available for select content creators and celebrities. People can send messages to their followers, and followers can react to those messages and answer polls but can’t reply to messages.
Along with text, users can broadcast audio, images, videos, and polls to their followers. This feature will gradually be rolled out to Facebook and Facebook Messenger as well. However, a release timeframe for those platforms hasn’t been revealed yet.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is secretly developing a decentralized social media network similar to Twitter rival Mastodon. Reports suggest it will work with the same APIs that power Mastodon, but people can log in using their Instagram profiles.
