A few years ago when Facebook grabbed instagram, people thought that they will integrate Facebook so tightly inside Instagram that it will become just another Facebook app. But fortunately they have not attempted anything like that and Instagram keeps thriving with its original freedom. If you are a heavy Instagram user and sharing dozens of pictures or videos on your Instagram every single day, then perhaps you might run out of the storage space on your phone because Instagram does not remove the local pictures and videos even after they have been uploaded to Instagram.
You can save many gigabytes of storage space by removing these files from your SD card. And even better, you can actually prevent these files to be saved locally by Instagram in the first place. After all, once the media files have been shared what you want to do with the local copies of the same pictures or videos?
In order to make Instagram avoid storing the pictures and videos locally you can follow these steps:
- Start by launching the Instagram app in your iPhone or Android device.
- In the Instagram app, tap on the user icon near the bottom-right corner of the app to open your profile.
- On the user profile screen, touch on the menu icon (looks like three vertical dots) to open the profile options.
- On the user profile options screen, tap on the Save Original Photos toggle button and turn it off. Similarly, tap on the Save Videos After Posting toggle button and turn it off.
- That’s it. Now your instagram won’t save these files locally and you will have the storage available for other things.
This will make Instagram not save the original pictures and videos locally and save the storage space for other things. But at the same time, if you want to use those media files for other things, then you will have to download them from your Instagram profile.