Your Instagram account data can be import from an account export file.
How to get it
Go to Your information and permissions in the Meta account center, then click Download your information, then Download or transfer information. Select the profile(s) you want to export (if prompted) then choose All available information, which should export everything.
You are then given the option to download to your device or send to a cloud storage service. Since the data needs to be on your computer to import it, select Download to device. (You could send to cloud storage, but you'd still have to download it from there as an extra step.)
Then make sure to change:
- Date range: All time
- Format: JSON
- Media quality: High
Then click Create files. Facebook will send you an email or notification when your data is ready to download.
Expected format
Instagram exports from 2022 onward are supported. They can remain in their archive files (they do not need to be extracted), however, extracting the archive first may speed up the import.
What is imported
The following information is added to your timeline:
- Basic profile info
- Posts with their photos and videos
- Stories
- Direct messages
Caveats
The source data lacks proper IDs, so individuals' display names become their ID on the timeline. This means if someone changes their name on Instagram, they will be cataloged as two different people in your timeline.
Like with Facebook, JSON strings are improperly encoded; emoji characters are encoded as UTF-8 instead of UTF-16. The importer does its best to reconstruct true values but may not always be accurate, and some corruption may be inevitable.