How to download Instagram reels on an iPhone

Instagram lets you save reels in collections within the app, and you can easily share reels with friends and family via various apps. However, there might come an occasion when you’ll want to download a reel and save it or share it separately from your device. While this wasn’t possible last year, more recent updates have made it possible to download and share reels directly from the app, with some caveats of course.

Download reels via Instagram

Open Instagram on your iPhone and find a reel that you want to download, now tap the share button to open the share panel. Here you can share the reel directly with friends and groups on Instagram itself, and you’ll see a scrollable bottom row that lets you share a link to the reel via various apps. If you scroll sideways on that bottom row, you’ll see a download button on reels that are downloadable.

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As you can tell, not all reels can be downloaded in this manner. Only reels that the creator marks as public can be downloaded. Most reels from people are private by default, though some popular influencers, companies, and government organisations like NASA make their reels public.

Record reels on iPhone

Another option is to record the reels and then share them. The legality of this is a grey area, but as long as you don’t intend to profit off private reels and they’re for private consumption only, you should be ok.

To record a reel, simply open the reel that you’d like to download, swipe down from the top right to open the control panel, and then hit the record button. If you’ve modified your control panel to remove the record button, you might have to return it to the control panel. Let the reel play for the duration you want to capture, then hit the stop button to stop the capture. The video will then be processed and saved to your Photo library.

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We’d recommend opening the recorded reel in the Photos app and trimming the video so that only the portion you want is captured. You can also crop the recording so the excess data on the top and bottom of the frame — Instagram’s and your phone’s UI — is removed.

Both options are quick and easy ways to download Instagram reels, and they use features that are built into Instagram itself. Some third-party apps and services are available for accomplishing the same task, but given that their legality is usually in question, we’ll avoid mentioning those. Whatever the case, the above options give you the same result at the end of the day.