Want to Save Your Instagram Reels Drafts to Your Phone but don’t have that option? Here’s an Easy Hack
Instagram features never roll out to all users at the same time or even ever. Each account is missing a feature or two big or small.
Maybe your account is missing Instagram Reels altogether (and this happens even in countries where Reels are available). Or maybe you do have Reels, but is missing a few features related to it.
Our Your Template Club account is missing the save button in Reels editing mode. This means when I record a Reel on that account, I can’t save it to use at a different account or TikTok or even just to have it on my phone as a back up!
And content backups matter, because we have all been there.
That ONE time we are finally able to batch a few Reels, we save them to drafts and next time we open Instagram the drafts are gone!
I hope this has not happened to you, because it stings — we all know shooting and editing Reels can be hard.
But this is a common Instagram glitch -one of the many glitches in Reels. It often happens when you log out. But when it comes to technology and social media apps, it doesn’t hurt to be on the safe side, so we highly recommend saving all your Reels to a folder on your phone or drive.
That way, aside from not losing it, you can also reuse them at a later date and use them as Pinterest story pins or TikToks too (even if you’re not there yet, you may be soon).
Another thing that can happen, if you’re like me and manage more than one Instagram account, is that you can make a mistake and save Reels in drafts… in the wrong account (insert dying tuba noise here).
So whatever your reason, this hack will come in handy if you are one of the many people who lost or don’t have the save button in Reels drafts.
Want to create gorgeous Reels 100% made in Canva with Built In Covers? Check out our 10 template designs pack below.
Here’s our easy hack to save your Instagram Reels drafts to your phone
It’s simple: you will share your Reel draft to your Story and save it.
You will open your Reels draft and post your Reel in stories and save it and delete it before anyone has even seen it.
Here’s the step-by-step on how to do this:
Go to your Reels drafts and find the first Reel you want to save
Instead of sharing it to Reels, choose the Stories tab
Share it to stories and then go to your stories
While the Reel is loading in Stories - it usually takes a few seconds to load and publish, tap on the 3 dots on the bottom right and choose Save as video.
After you save it, wait for it to publish and as soon as it does, you can delete it from your stories before anyone sees it (and if a few people do, it’s really not a big deal).
After it’s saved to your phone, make sure you move somewhere where you can easily find it, like a folder inside your phone, or a folder in Google drive.
Click the Stories tab to share the Reel you want to save
Click the three dots on the bottom right to save your Reel to your phone
Get in the habit of saving your Reels from your drafts and reusing them a few months later - unless they are time sensitive or part of a trend that is no longer relevant.
PS: We have the best Reels Canva Templates for Covers or the entire Reels.
Manu Muraro is the founder of Your Social Team, an Instagram training membership and content shop to help social media managers and Instagram savvy women entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and grow their organic engagement (yes, even in 2021). This year she also launched Your Template Club, a Canva Template subscription to provide social media managers and Instagram savvy business owners with content template designed for engagement in their inbox.
Born and raised in Brazil, Manu moved to the U.S. in 2000 right out of college to work for Cartoon Network, where she made an award winning career in creative and strategy. In 2017, Manu started Your Social Team with the mission of helping women entrepreneur and social media managers grow engagement and sales through Instagram without the overwhelm.