How To Backup Your Instagram Account Data - J.Olson Weddings

Here’s a breakdown of all the other JSON files included:

• autofill.json - autofill data, if you’ve used this feature.

• checkout.json - data used if you’ve ever purchased something on Instagram.

• comments.json - Every comment you’ve ever posted, including hashtags on posts and emojis.

• connections.json - Includes a list of blocked users, restricted users, close friends, followers, follow requests, and users and hashtags you follow.

• contacts.json - If you’ve ever imported your contacts into Instagram, they’re stored here.

• likes.json - All your likes, although only the account of the post liked and time and date are included.

• media.json - Captions on your post, writing on instagram stories, as well as location data, time and date, and the URL path instagram used to post your content.

• messages.json - This file is a bit messy; it includes all the messages you’ve sent, the users you’ve sent the messages to, as well as posts shared over direct messaging. The messy part is that the caption of any posts shared over direct messaging are in this file as well, making it one of the largest JSON files in the Data Download.

• saved.json - Contains all the posts you’ve bookmarked using Instagram’s save feature. It includes the name of the folder you saved the post to, when you made the folder, when you last updated it, and the accounts you’ve saved. Here’s an example of how that data displays:

  • "name": "Inspo", "created_at": "2017-10-18T01:53:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2018-12-08T16:00:47+00:00", "media": ["2019-03-12T19:59:23+00:00", “jamesmoesweddings”]

• searches.json - Your search history. How much data in this file will vary on if you’ve cleared your search history in the past (you can do this from your Privacy and Security settings). My file contained my last 28 days of searches, I am unsure if Instagram keeps your search history longer than this.

• settings.json - A file containing some basic instagram preferences, such as allowing comments, or filtering keywords.

• stories_activities.json - A list of recent polls, quizzes, countdowns, emoji sliders or Q&A stories you’ve interacted with, however only time, date, and account name are listed.

As for media that included in the download, you get the following folders:

• Direct - Images you’ve shared over direct message. Stories/posts are not included, only photos you’ve sent directly from your device.

• Photos - The photos you’ve posted.

• Profile - Your profile pictures.

• Stories - The photos, videos you’ve shared to your IG story. Also included are posts you’ve shared to your stories, regardless of if it’s your content or another user’s.

• Videos - Videos you’ve shared to your profile.

Any ephemeral data, such as self deleting direct messages and photos, are not included.

The Catch - Image/Video Compression

That’s a whole lot of data! Unfortunately, everything included in your folder will be a heavily compressed version of the original photo/video/story. This is because the data being sent to you is the data that stored on Instagram’s servers, and Instagram does not store the original version of the content you post and share on the platform.

As of 1/25/2020*, there are more then 1 billion active IG users, sharing 100 million photos and videos and posting 500 million stories every day. There is absolutely no sustainable way for Instagram to keep everyone’s original high quality content. Storing that much data would be incredibly costly.