All public Reels will be made available to download—unless users restrict the option in settings. (Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash)
Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief, has announced that users in the United States can now save Reels directly to their camera roll. Here’s how it works.
Instagram Reels have quickly risen up the ranks to compete with TikTok, but the platform until now was missing one key feature that TikTok has had for some time—the ability to download Reels and share them on other platforms.
Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s head, on his Instagram broadcast channel, said that US-based users can now download Reels to their camera roll. And downloading a Reel is as simple as tapping the share icon and then tapping the ‘Download’ button. Mosseri noted that all public Reels will be made available to download—unless users restrict the option in settings.
The feature is expected to gradually expand to India and other nations in the near future. In the meantime, users have the option to use third-party applications and websites to download Reels.
India, in particular, has a strong ‘WhatsApp culture’ where short videos and photos from various platforms like Twitter and Instagram are widely shared. Once the feature becomes available in India, it is certain to bring delight to Indian users.
However, as per TechCrunch, Mosseri hasn’t clarified if downloaded Reels will have a watermark or not. TikTok, for instance, adds a watermark once you download a video to share on other platforms or keep it in your local gallery. In the image shared by Mosseri, there’s a faint watermark on the side of the downloaded Reel—so it is likely that watermarks will be present on downloaded Reels.
In other news, Instagram is finally rolling out the Broadcast Channels feature globally. The feature is designed to establish a deeper connection between creators and audiences, and the company is also bringing a new ‘Collaborators’ feature—which enables creators to invite other creators or followers to be a part of their broadcast channel.
