How to delete Instagram but keep your photos and memories

Prefer a click-by-click walkthrough with screenshots? See the full guide →

everkeptphotos.com/gallery

Off Meta, in your hands — every post, reel, and video organized by year and by the people in them.

Why so many people are leaving Meta right now

If you're thinking about deleting Instagram, you're far from alone. The reasons people give tend to be calm and practical rather than dramatic:

Privacy. Many people simply want less of their life stored on a platform they no longer use much, and more control over who can see it.

How uploaded content gets used. Meta's products increasingly include AI features, and how a platform may use the photos and content people upload is a fair thing to care about. The exact rules are set by Meta's own policies and your account's privacy settings, and they change over time — so it's worth reading Instagram's current Privacy Policy and reviewing your settings rather than relying on rumor. Many people would simply rather keep their memories somewhere private and entirely their own.

A lighter footprint. Plenty of people are stepping back from social media in general — and they don't want stepping back to mean losing years of photos, reels, and videos.

Whatever your reason, the move that protects your memories is the same: get them out first.

Download everything before you delete

1. Open Accounts Center. In the Instagram app, go to your profile → menu → Accounts Center, or on a computer visit accountscenter.facebook.com. (Instagram and Facebook share the same Accounts Center hub.)
2. Find "Your information and permissions." Then click Download your information.
3. Choose your Instagram profile. If you have more than one account linked, pick the Instagram profile you want.
4. Create the export. Set Date range to All time, Format to HTML (easiest to browse) or JSON, and Media quality to High. Select Photos and videos if you only want your media — a smaller, faster export.
5. Submit and wait for the email. Instagram usually takes a day or two to prepare the file (longer than Facebook). The download link expires after a few days, so grab it promptly.
6. Download the ZIP and confirm it's complete — then delete. Download all the ZIP files and open one to make sure your photos and reels are really there. Only then start the deletion. After the grace period (typically about 30 days, during which logging back in cancels it), deletion is permanent.

For the detailed version with screenshots, see how to download all your Instagram photos and how to request your archive step by step.

Keep your memories private and your own

The export gets your photos out — but it leaves them in a mess. They land in nested folders, the original dates are often stripped, and videos sit apart from photos. After leaving Meta for the sake of control, you don't want to land in a ZIP file you can't make sense of.

That's what everkept fixes. Upload the ZIP and you get one private gallery — every post, reel, and video together, organized by year and grouped by the people in them, with the dates restored. Only you can access it, your uploaded files are deleted from our servers after 30 days unless you keep your gallery, and it's never sold, shared, or used to train anything. Free to preview; one-time price to keep it, no subscription. The privacy you wanted, with all the memories intact.

Common questions