How to Download Instagram Videos

How to save an Instagram video

You found a video on Instagram and you want to keep it. Maybe it is a Reel you want to watch again, or a clip a friend posted that you know will get buried by tomorrow. Instagram does not give you a save button for it, so you need a small workaround.

That is what a tool like VDFR is for. It is free, it runs in your browser, and the whole thing takes about thirty seconds. Here is how it works.

Step 1: Copy the link to the post

First you need the link to the post that has the video.

On the phone app

Open Instagram and go to the video. Tap the three dots at the top of the post, or the paper plane share icon below it, and choose Copy link. The link is now on your clipboard.

On a computer

Open the post in your browser and copy the URL from the address bar. That works too.

Step 2: Paste the link into VDFR

Go to the VDFR home page and paste the link into the box at the top. Hit Download. VDFR pulls the video and shows you what is available, usually in a couple of quality options.

Step 3: Pick a quality and save

Click download next to the quality you want. HD looks better but the file is a bit bigger. If you are not sure which to pick, we wrote a short post on Instagram video formats and quality.

On a phone the file lands in your gallery or Downloads folder. On a computer it goes wherever your browser saves files. That is it. No account, nothing to install.

What about Reels, Stories, and photos

Same idea, slightly different starting point. We have separate guides for downloading Reels and saving Stories. Photos and carousel posts work with the steps above.

Doing it on your phone a lot

If you save videos often, copying links gets old. The VDFR app on Google Play and the app on the App Store let you share a post straight from Instagram into the app, so the download starts on its own. There is a full Android guide and an iPhone guide if you want the details.

A couple of things to know

VDFR only works with public posts. If an account is private, we cannot reach it, and we will not ask you to log in to get around that. If a download fails, the post is usually private or deleted. Our troubleshooting guide covers the common fixes.