It's not always ideal to send Instagram links for sharing a picture. Quite often we face situation where sharing links to Instagram posts doesn't make any sense. Instagram doesn't have any native option to download pictures from Instagram, neither do they allow sharing the image directly from the native app to other apps but allows only to share the link to the post. This is where the third-party apps and websites solve the problem, but not always.

Downloading Instagram posts from third party apps could be risky. Some third-party apps ask users to login into their Instagram account within the app, which puts the user's username and password at risk. This could be a trap for Phishing, Keystroke Logging or sometimes more devastating cyber-attacks.

Safer Options

Speaking about the safer sides, it could be trickier for some. We shall discuss about the methods in the order of easier to trickier.

Methods for downloading from Instagram:

A) Web-apps like CaptureInsta: Look for the web apps which doesn't ask users to login into their Instagram account or doesn't ask for user's credentials. In certain scenarios, we might want to browse a profile and download the pictures right from there. CaptureInsta could be a better solution for it, captureinsta.com allows to browse the profile and download the required posts. CaptureInsta also allows to download the posts directly from the link to the post.

Downloading from CaptureInsta requires only four straightforward steps, explained below with proper screenhots.

Click on the three dots on top right corner of the post. There you will get bunch of options like reporting the post, copy like etc.
Click on 'Copy link' to copy the link to your clipboard.

3. open https://www.captureinsta.com/instagram-posts-downloader and paste the URL/link in the box like shown in the screenshot below.

4. Wait for the post to load and click on the 'DOWNLOAD' button to download the picture. It also supports downloading Instagram carousel image.

Pretty easy right?

That's all, you have now safely and successfully downloaded Instagram picture through CaptureInsta with just four effortless steps. If you want to download private Instagram posts, refer to the next method. Currently CaptureInsta doesn't allow to download private media through the webapp.

B) Using Instagram's REST API: RESTful web services allow applications to communicate in between the server and the client. you can use the same REST API to communicate with Instagram's serer yourself. Instagram fetches the information of post with the endpoint like https://www.instagram.com/p/xxxxxxxxxx/__a=1. You just need to append '? __a=1' in the of the post link/URL.

This method of download Instagram picture is absolutely safe, and you can even download Instagram private posts if you follow the other user. To download Instagram private pictures, you must login into your Instagram account within the same browser. Be sure to use safe web browsers like Safari, Firefox, Chrome, or Edge. The steps to download with this method is discussed below.

Copy the link to the Instagram Post (Refer to method: A screenshots to see how you can copy the link to post)
Open a safe web browser, if it's a private post you are aiming to download, you must login into your Instagram account in the same browser.
Open a new tab, paste the link to the post in the address bar of browser and append "?__a=1" to the link of the post. For example, if the link of the post is "https://www.instagram.com/xxxxxxxxxx/", the final link should be "https://www.instagram.com/xxxxxxxxxx/?__a=1". Now open the final link in the browser.
Look for a property "display_url" in the response. Or you can choose a URL from the adjacent property "display_resources" with your desired resolution of the picture and click on the URL to download the picture.