Does Instagram send screenshot notifications to users? Myths Busted

June 7, 2020

Instagram is a large social media platform where content from all corners of the world is posted daily. So, in this large hub, you are bound to get attracted to certain categories or type of content. In some cases, you may want to screenshot posts, stories, DMs, etc so that you can save it for future references. But, the question which arises is that is it actually safe to screenshot Instagram story post or for the fact any kind of Instagram content?

Won’t Instagram inform the content owner about the screenshot captured by you? Well, let’s find about that only in today’s post.

Reasons That You May Want To Capture Screenshot Of Something On Instagram:

Before we begin ahead, let’s take a look at a few common or obvious reasons on why an individual would want to screenshot something on Instagram.

It could be an educational or learning content that an individual would like to refer later on.
The content could be a meme or something of funny nature. Generally, memes are a lot saved and shared among the young age group.
It could be a beautiful view of certain location that maybe you would want to keep as a wallpaper.
A lot of screenshots are taken of stories as they are temporary in nature and remain for a period of 24 hours only.

These are some of the common reasons that generally make people screenshot Instagram story or post. Your reason could be same from the above or it could be something different.

That’s totally fine but what’s not fine is not respecting the privacy of the other person. Both from the view point of Instagram policies and human rights, you should respect the privacy and not capture screenshot of personal content of someone else.

Table of Contents

Does Instagram notify when you screenshot a story?

At one point in 2018, we clearly remember that Instagram used to have a feature which would inform the users whenever someone captured a screenshot of their posted stories. As some had expected, this feature didn’t go down quite well with the masses and eventually it was taken down by Instagram in the same year.

As of today, Instagram doesn’t hold that feature anymore, which simply means that you are free to capture the screenshot of whichever story you like without being worried about the notification. But, you never know when Instagram may bring that feature back, as these days they are experimenting a lot with their platform. So, just make sure that you are up to date with the platform change logs.

Just in case, if something similar arises again or for some general information, here are a few methods that you could adopt to screenshot Instagram story, without ever getting caught:

The most simple trick is to take an external camera and capture the story that you would like to offline save. This is a perfect trick, if you are in any sort of hurry or emergency.
Accessing the Instagram website from computer and capturing the screenshot can’t inform the platform algorithm what you exactly did.
Screen recording your mobile screen and opening the story is also one of the indirect ways to saving it down on your device. You can later on access the saved footage and crop up the Instagram story.
We don’t recommend this step at all but in case the feature returns back tomorrow and all the above tricks are patched somehow then that’s when the third party apps or services would actually come to the rescue. There are many in the market that can help you literally save up any content of Instagram in an instance. Again, no guarantee of the third party options but still they will stand till the last of the battle.

Can I Screenshot a Post?

Just like in case of stories, Instagram doesn’t notify the user when you screenshot a post. For those, who maybe confused that what exactly comes under post, then let us tell you that posts are the media content that you put up on your timeline for others to see.

So, basically anything that you directly access from a profile or something that comes up itself on your home or explore feed, can be basically termed as a post of Instagram.

To make it easier for the users, Instagram has the bookmark feature. Through the bookmark option, you don’t need to download the content on your phone memory, instead of that you can directly save it inside the app only.

In fact, you can even include categorization and accordingly assign the posts. Also, the other person won’t know that you have bookmarked their post as the bookmark section for each user is personal.

Does Instagram notify when you screenshot a DM?

Alright, this is where Instagram actually plays a role which you may or may not like to hear. Normally, you can take screenshots of any content present in a private chat or DM, without any tension of other person getting notified.

But, Instagram has a feature of disappearing messages, where things are not like the above cases. In simple words, disappearing messages, as the name suggests is nothing but temporary videos and photos that would be vanished once it gets seen by the other party.

So, if you try to screenshot a disappearing message, then we are sorry to say but you will have a screenshot notification being sent of your name to the user. We are sure that you don’t want that to happen, so it’s better to avoid capturing any temporary messages.

How do I know if someone has took screenshot of my IG Story?

Instagram actually doesn’t have an option through which you can know the people who could have actually captured the screenshots of your stories. Like we earlier said, it’s true that Instagram had such a feature a while back but it looks like that’s not the case anymore.

For now, you can adopt some indirect measures of Instagram to actually lessen the chances of unauthorized people capturing screenshots of your photos and videos. You can do either of the two things or both, it’s up to you:

If you have a public profile then you can convert it to a private profile and make sure that only the people you know are a part of your followers list.
If you have some issues in converting to a private profile, then you can go for the close friends option. This feature basically allows you to create a list of close friends who would have exclusive access to stories that you decide to just broadcast to them.
There’s also the feature of hiding stories from certain users. You are free to even go for that. In this case, the other person may be able to follow you and even see your profile timeline but he/she will not be able to have access to your stories from their account as you have denied the access to their username.

Conclusion:

Instagram as a platform has to keep the privacy concerns in mind and at the same time also not let the users get disappointed as after all they are the ultimate backbone of the social media hub. As of today, you are free to screenshot Instagram story, post or DMs.

But, yes disappearing messages are excluded in this as if you try to capture them then that screenshot notification would be sent to the other person/s. That being said, it’s also important to have your moral values always in mind.

So, the next time when you screenshot a content or even plan to, just ask yourself one question that am I respecting the privacy of the other individual/s?

Read Also: