Windows 11/10 · Login required · Photos, Reels, Stories, Highlights
gallery-dl downloads entire Instagram profiles, posts, reels, stories and highlights in original resolution. Login via browser cookies is required since Instagram restricted public access in 2023.
--cookies-from-browser chrome. Make sure you're logged in to Instagram in your browser first.
Commands
All commands run in PowerShell from the folder containing gallery-dl.exe.
gallery-dl --cookies-from-browser chrome "https://www.instagram.com/username/"
gallery-dl --cookies-from-browser chrome "https://www.instagram.com/p/POST_ID/"
gallery-dl --cookies-from-browser chrome "https://www.instagram.com/stories/username/"
gallery-dl --cookies-from-browser chrome "https://www.instagram.com/highlights/HIGHLIGHT_ID/"
gallery-dl --cookies-from-browser chrome -d "C:\Images\Instagram" "https://www.instagram.com/username/"
gallery-dl --cookies "C:\Tools\gallery-dl\instagram-cookies.txt" "https://www.instagram.com/username/"
Setup guide
Three steps. Takes about 2 minutes.
Open instagram.com in Chrome, Firefox, or Edge and log in to your account. For private profiles, make sure you follow them.
Close Chrome or Firefox fully (including the system tray). gallery-dl needs to read the cookie database — it can't if the browser has it locked.
Open PowerShell in your gallery-dl folder and paste the command. gallery-dl downloads all posts in original resolution.
Config for Instagram
Add this to your config.json so you never need the --cookies-from-browser flag again.
{
"extractor": {
"base-directory": "C:/Images/",
"instagram": {
"cookies": "C:/Tools/gallery-dl/instagram-cookies.txt",
"sleep-request": 3.0,
"videos": true,
"filename": "{username}_{shortcode}_{num}.{extension}"
}
}
}
sleep-request: 3.0 — slows requests to avoid Instagram rate limiting. Recommended for large profile downloads.
See the full config guide and cookies export guide.
FAQ
gallery-dl -U to get the latest fixes.--cookies-from-browser chrome. Also make sure your browser is fully closed before running gallery-dl on Windows.sleep-request below 2 seconds or your account may get temporarily restricted. Instead, use --download-archive archive.txt to skip already-downloaded files and run multiple smaller sessions.gallery-dl --download-archive archive.txt --cookies-from-browser chrome "URL". gallery-dl writes each downloaded file ID to the archive and skips it on future runs.