Instagram will soon let you download all your old photos

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Instagram makes sharing Stories simpler.
Photo: Instagram

Leaving Instagram is about to get a lot easier.

With pressure rising on its parent company to give users access to all of their data, Instagram says it plans to release a tool that will let you download all of the content you’ve shared on the social network.

“We are building a new data portability tool. You’ll soon be able to download a copy of what you’ve shared on Instagram, including your photos, videos and messages,” an Instagram spokesperson told Techcrunch

Exporting data from Instagram has been notoriously difficult for years. The app doesn’t offer a way for users to save pictures on their profile to their camera roll. Instead, users have been forced to rely on shoddy third-party services to download their old pics.

The new tool could make easier for Instagram users to migrate over to other photo sharing apps too. It’s still unclear whether Instagram will give users access to their uncompressed photo files stored on its servers, or just the compressed version.

There’s also no word on when the tool will actually be available. Hopefully it will come out by May 25, putting Instagram in compliance with the European GDPR privacy law.

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