How to Export a Reel from Instagram

You've created the perfect Instagram Reel - the timing is perfect, the cuts are clean, and the trend is spot on. Now, you want to get that video off of Instagram and onto your phone, computer, or another social platform. This article breaks down every simple and effective way to export a Reel, covering the best methods for different situations so you can easily save and repurpose your hard work.

Why Would You Want to Export a Reel?

Before getting into the how-to, it's worth thinking about why you'd want to do this. Understanding your goal will help you pick the right method. Most people export Reels for a few key reasons:

• Repurposing Content: Your Reel could be a massive hit on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Pinterest. Exporting the video allows you to share it across different platforms without having to create the same content from scratch. This is a massive timesaver for creators and brands.
• Creating a Backup: Social media platforms can be unpredictable. Accounts can get locked, content can be accidentally deleted, or glitches can happen. Saving your best-performing videos creates a valuable personal archive of your work.
• Offline Viewing and Sharing: Sometimes you just want to show a video to friends or family without needing to pull up the Instagram app. Having the file downloaded to your phone makes sharing quick and easy, even without an internet connection.
• Building a Portfolio: If you're a content creator, videographer, or social media manager, exported Reels serve as excellent clips for your professional portfolio or a "sizzle reel" to show off your skills to potential clients.

Method 1: Using Instagram's Built-in "Save" Feature

Let's start with the simplest, most official dedicated way to download one of your own Reels directly inside the Instagram app. This method is fast and safe, but it comes with one very important limitation you need to know about.

The Big Catch: If your Reel uses a song or audio clip from Instagram's music library, the downloaded video will have no sound. This is because of music licensing restrictions. If you only used your original audio (meaning, the sound recorded with your video), the audio will be saved just fine.

Here's how to do it:

1. Navigate to your Instagram profile and open the Reel you want to save.
2. Tap the three dots ( • • • ) icon, usually located in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
3. From the menu that appears, tap on "Save to your device."
4. The video will download and save directly to your phone's camera roll or photo gallery.

When to use this method: This is great for quickly saving Reels where the audio isn't important or where you've used your own original audio for a voiceover or background noise.

Method 2: Save Your Reel (With Effects!) Before Hitting Publish

This is a pro-tip for every creator. The best way to get a clean, high-quality copy of your own Reel is to save it during the creation process, right before it goes live. This method often gives you a version with all your edits, text, and GIFs intact, without the Instagram watermark.

The audio catch still applies here - if you've added commercially licensed music from Instagram's library, it likely won't save with the video. However, unlike the first method, this lets you preserve a master copy of your edit before Instagram compresses it for posting.

Follow these steps:

1. After you're finished editing your Reel clips, adding text, and applying effects, press "Next" to go to the final screen where you write your caption and tag people.
2. Don't hit "Share" yet! Look for a little download icon at the top of the editing screen - it looks like an arrow pointing down.
3. Tap that download icon. Instagram will process the video and save it directly to your phone's camera roll.
4. Now you can proceed to share your Reel or exit the editor. You have a clean copy waiting for you.

When to use this method: This should be your go-to process for every Reel you create. It's the best way to get a high-resolution backup of your visual work before it's published.

Method 3: Using Third-Party Websites and Apps

What if you want to download a Reel with its trending audio intact? Or what if you want to save a video that someone else posted? This is where third-party tools come into play. These are websites and apps designed specifically for downloading public Instagram content.

The general process is virtually the same for all of them:

1. Open the Instagram app and find the Reel you want to export. It must be from a public account.
2. Tap the paper airplane (Share) icon.
3. In the menu that pops up, tap "Copy link."
4. Open your phone's web browser and search for an "Instagram Reel downloader" website (plenty of free options exist). Alternatively, you can use a dedicated downloader app you've installed from the app store.
5. On the website or in the app, you'll see a field where you can paste the link you copied. Paste it in.
6. Tap the "Download" button. The tool will process the video, and you'll typically be given a link to download the video file (usually an MP4), with sound included.

A Quick Word on Safety and Etiquette

While third-party tools are extremely useful, you should be careful. They are not affiliated with Instagram, and you should use them with common sense:

• Never Give Out Your Password: A legitimate downloader tool will only ever ask for the public URL of the Reel. It will never ask you to log in with your Instagram username and password. If it does, close it immediately.
• Be Mindful of Ads: These free services are supported by advertising, which can sometimes be intrusive or misleading. Be cautious about what you click on.
• Copyright Still Applies: Just because you can download someone else's video doesn't mean you have the right to re-upload it as your own. If you repurpose another creator's content, always give them proper credit. Also, remember that a song's license on Instagram doesn't carry over to other platforms like YouTube.

Method 4: Good Old-Fashioned Screen Recording

If all else fails, or if you want a foolproof method that doesn't rely on any third-party websites, you can always rely on screen recording. Both iPhones and Android devices have this feature built right in.

This will capture everything exactly as it appears on your screen - video and audio included.

For iPhone Users:

1. First, make sure Screen Recording is in your Control Center. Go to Settings >, Control Center and add "Screen Recording" if it isn't already there.
2. Open the Instagram Reel you want to save. Mute your phone if you don't want notifications popping up in the recording.
3. Swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to open the Control Center.
4. Tap the record icon (a circle within a circle). After a three-second countdown, it will begin recording.
5. Swipe up to close the Control Center and let the full Reel play through.
6. To stop, tap the red clock or status bar at the top of your screen and hit "Stop."
7. The video will be saved to your Photos app, where you can easily trim the beginning and end.

For Android Users:

1. Pull down your notification shade from the top of the screen to reveal the Quick Settings panel.
2. Find the "Screen recorder" tile and tap it. (You may need to swipe left to find it or edit your layout to add it).
3. A small menu will appear. Make sure you select "Media sounds" so it captures audio from the app, not your microphone.
4. Tap "Start recording." A countdown will begin.
5. Navigate to the Reel and let it play.
6. When you're done, pull down the notification shade again and tap the stop button on the screen recorder notification.
7. Your recording will be saved in your phone's gallery, ready to be edited.

When to use this method: It's a universal solution that works for any video on any public or private account (so long as you can view it). The downside is that the quality might be slightly lower than a direct download, and you'll always have to trim the ends.

Best Practices After Exporting Your Reel

You have the video file. Now what? If you plan to repurpose it, keep these things in mind to get the best results:

• Remove the Watermark for Other Platforms: If your saved video includes an Instagram Reel watermark, you may want to remove it before posting to platforms like TikTok, which has been known to reduce the reach of videos containing a competing platform's logo. Many online video editors can help with this.
• Check Audio Licensing: We can't stress this enough. That trending song on Instagram is not free to use everywhere. Posting it directly to YouTube could earn you a copyright strike. It's almost always better to export your video Reels without sound and add audio using the native library of the platform you're posting to (e.g., add a new trending sound from within TikTok's editor).
• Optimize for Each Platform: A little tweaking goes a long way. Consider making small changes to your video by adjusting the text, captions, or hashtags to feel more native on each platform. It will almost always perform better than a generic, one-size-fits-all post.

Final Thoughts

Whether you're using Instagram's download features, getting a clean copy with a third-party app, or just screen recording your content, saving your Reels is straightforward. The best method simply depends on whose Reel it is, whether you need the audio, and how you plan to use it.

Once you have your video file, the next step is often putting it to work across all your social channels. That's where we wanted to make life easier for creators. At Postbase, we built our platform for the reality of modern social media: creating one great video and getting the most out of it everywhere. Instead of manually uploading and tailoring your Reel for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and everywhere else, you can use our visual calendar to plan everything at a glance. Upload your video once, then customize the captions, hashtags, and scheduling for each platform in a single, stress-free workflow with Postbase.