Instagram Won't Snitch If You Screenshot (For the Most Part)

Oh, you’re here because you screenshotted someone’s Instagram story and want to know if they’ll get a notification about it, à la Snapchat? First, know you’re safe, babe. Take a deep breath. We’ve all been there. They’re not going to find out if you screenshotted their grid post or story, at least not through a notification. Second, there are a few instances where an Instagram user might be made aware that you’re sharing their content, or at least filing it away for later. Here’s everything you need to know about screenshotting, saving, sharing, and Instagram, so you can lurk in relative peace.

Does Instagram share notifications of screenshots?

Let’s get this clear right away: If you screenshot someone’s grid or story post, they do not get a notification. Ditto for screen recording a video post. It just doesn’t happen. Never has. Please, take it from me, someone who is, for better or worse, extremely good at creeping around on the app: I do it all the time. If any of the people whose content I was screenshotting got a notification about it, I’d know by now. And I’d tell you. 

That said, there is one way people can see if you’re screenshotting something on Instagram. It’s minor, but that’s what makes it insidious. If someone sends a photo directly to you via DM, using the in-DM camera feature, and you screenshot it, they will get a notification. It looks like this: 

To demonstrate how this looks, I asked my recipient to screenshot the first picture I sent and to open and view, but not screenshot, the second. These photos were sent in real time, using the camera icon in the bottom left, next to the typing box. As you can see, a little circle icon (it looks like a camera shutter) appeared next to the first one, which tells me it was screenshotted. If you send a photo from your camera roll (selecting it by hitting the icon between the microphone and dialogue bubble with three dots) and the recipient screenshots it, you do not receive a notification. You only get one if they screenshot something that was taken and sent using the in-app camera. 

Other ways to see if people are sharing your Instagram content

Screenshotting on Instagram is safe the vast majority of the time, but there are other ways a person might be able to figure out if you’re disseminating their content or saving it for future review. 

If you have a business account, not a personal one, you have access to some additional features that can come in handy here. Under your grid posts, you’ll see a button that says “View insights.” Tapping this will bring you to a page that shows how many accounts were reached, how many were engaged, how many people tapped through to see your profile, how many were following you already, and all kinds of other interesting data. You’ll also see, right at the top, a string of four numbers: How many accounts liked it, how many comments it got, how many shares it got, and how many saves it got.

The shares and saves are important here. The rightward facing arrow that looks like a paper plane is your shares. The rectangle with a triangular cutout that looks like a bookmark is your saves. If you check this, you can’t see who is sharing or saving it, but you can get a sense of how many opps (or fans) you have. Above, see that nine people shared my post and six saved it. What were their intentions? These are the questions that keep me up at night, but alas, I may never uncover the culprits. Bear in mind that if you save or share a post, if the person has a business profile, they’ll at least know someone did. Depending on the content of the post and how many followers they have, they could narrow it down to you. (To check if someone has a business account, tap their profile. If there’s a descriptor under their name, like Journalist, Blogger, Public figure, or buttons like “Contact,” they have a business profile.)

Then, there’s Instagram story. Anyone with a business profile can also see the data related to their story posts, both when the posts are up and in the story archive. Next to the eye-shaped icon that indicates viewers, there will be an icon with three rectangles that looks like a bar graph. It reveals how many accounts were reached, how many engaged with the post, how many replies it got, etc. It also reveals shares. Below is an example of a time one of my stories got 11 shares. I was able to figure out who shared it by looking through the views and taking note of the viewers who were not my followers. Sensing nasty intentions, I blocked the original sharer. If you share someone’s story in-app, the people with whom you share it will appear on the story’s viewership list, which could easily implicate you. 

Does any of this matter? No, we should all launch our phones into the nearest trash can Sabrina van der Woodsen-style and go touch grass. But there are ways people can sniff out whether you’re sharing or saving their posts, even though they won’t get a notification if you screenshot.