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Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET
These days, we capture most of our memories through a smartphone camera — and then we add a filter and a few witty hashtags and post those memories on Instagram for the world to see. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this (I definitely do it), but if Instagram photos are your only snapshots of life, you probably want to back them up.
Instagram doesn’t make saving photos very easy, though — you certainly can’t save any photos from the app, though your own photos are probably saved somewhere on your phone. These handy IFTTT recipes will help you back up your Instagram photos automatically to the cloud service of your choice.
IFTTT, or “IF This Then That,” is an automation tool that lets you set up automatic actions to be performed in one app when triggered by a separate action in a different app. IFTTT connects a variety of apps, programs and devices together so you can use any action on one app/program/device to trigger any action on another app/program/device.
Back up your photos
Yes, your phone probably saves your Instagram photos (both the prefiltered and postfiltered versions) to your camera roll, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still have a few extra backup copies. There are recipes for saving your Instagram photos to Box, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. You can also save just your Instagram videos to these services (Box, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive). If you want to remember when you took your photos, this recipe lets you log them on your Google Calendar.
Back up other people’s photos
You can use IFTTT to back up any random user’s Instagram photos to a cloud storage service (here’s a recipe that lets you back up Kim Kardashian’s Instagrams to your SkyDrive!), but that’s a little weird, unless you’re a stalker (and then it’s really weird).
Instead, use a recipe like this one to back up Instagram photos you like to Dropbox (Box, Evernote, Google Drive, OneDrive). This IFTTT will collect all Instagram photos taken at a specific venue (e.g., your wedding venue) on a specific day (e.g., your wedding day), and store them in a Dropbox folder, while this recipe will do the same thing but for a hashtag.
This recipe lets you collect Instagrams from a certain area (less specific than the venue recipe) and save them in Google Drive, while this recipe collects all Instagram photos you’re tagged in and saves them in Google Drive.
Share your photos with everyone
One of the most life-changing Instagram IFTTT recipes is this one, which automatically posts your Instagram photos to your Twitter feed, but posts them as full Twitter photo cards — not just Instagram links (which is what happens when you use Instagram’s “share to Twitter” feature).
If you want this service, but you don’t want all your Instagram photos automatically posted to Twitter, use this recipe, which posts any Instagram photos you tag with a hashtag of your choice. If you want to post other people’s Instagram photos, this recipe will automatically tweet any Instagram photos you like/favorite.
For sharing Instagram photos with people who aren’t on Instagram, this handy recipe lets you email your Instagrams to anyone (using Gmail). You can also automatically post your Instagram photos to Flickr, Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger or Facebook.
