So you just made a Reel, posted it, and bam, it shows up in your phone’s gallery. Again. If you are like me and your gallery already has way too many random screenshots, dog photos, and memes, this can get annoying real quick.
So, can you stop Instagram from auto-saving Reels to your gallery? Yes, you totally can! And trust me, it takes like 20 seconds.
Let me tell you what happened to me. I once made a few test Reels, just for fun. Nothing serious. But later, I opened my gallery and, boom, there they all were. Cringe and all. That’s when I knew I had to find a way to stop it.
Here is how you do it:
1. Open Instagram and tap your profile icon.
2. Tap the three lines (menu) at the top right.
3. Go to Settings and Privacy > then tap Archiving and downloading (or something similar).
4. Look for “Save Reels to device” and turn it off.
5. And you are done! Easy, right?
Now Instagram won’t save every single Reel you post. So you can create without worrying about cluttering your phone.
But hey, if you ever want to save a Reel to your gallery, you can still do it manually.
this little setting saved me from a lot of embarrassment. So if you are the kind of person who makes a lot of drafts or goofy Reels, definitely switch it off.