How to Download Instagram Messages: Export Your DMs (2026)

To download Instagram messages, use Accounts Center → Your information and permissions → Export your information. Create an export to your device, choose only Messages, pick JSON, and start it. Instagram notifies you when the file is ready, usually within minutes to a couple of days. Your DMs arrive as message_1.json files, one folder per conversation.

Instagram has no "save this chat" button, so the official data export is the only complete way to get your DMs out. It works well, but it surprises people in three ways: the menu has moved more than once, it takes a while, and the file you get isn't something you can comfortably read. I'll walk through all three. The menu names below are as of October 2026; Meta renames things often, so if a label differs slightly, look for the closest match.

Step by step: download your Instagram DMs

1. 1

   Open Accounts Center

   In the Instagram app, go to your profile, tap the ☰ menu, then Accounts Center. On a computer, open Instagram, click More → Settings → Accounts Center.

2. 2

   Find Export your information

   Tap Your information and permissions → Export your information (older versions call it Download your information). Then tap Create export and choose your Instagram profile.

3. 3

   Export to device and pick only Messages

   Choose Export to device. Under Customize information, deselect everything except Messages. Asking only for Messages keeps the export small and fast. Full exports can be enormous.

4. 4

   Set the date range, format and media quality

   Set Date range to All time if you want the whole history. Set Format to JSON, which converts more reliably than HTML. Choose a media quality; higher means a bigger download.

5. 5

   Start the export and wait

   Tap Start export. Instagram may ask for your password. You'll get a notification (and usually an email) when it's ready. It can take minutes for a small account or a couple of days for a large one.

6. 6

   Download the ZIP

   Go back to Export your information, find the finished export and tap Download. You'll need your password again. The download is only available for a few days, so grab it promptly.

Inside the ZIP, your DMs are under your_instagram_activity/messages/inbox/, with one folder per conversation (named after the other person plus a number). Each folder has message_1.json, plus message_2.json and so on for long chats, and folders like photos, videos and audio for media. Message requests sit in a separate message_requests folder.

JSON or HTML: which should you pick?

If you only want to glance at a conversation, HTML is easier to open. If you want to keep it, print it or search it, choose JSON and convert it. The garbled emoji in JSON isn't damage. It's how Meta encodes the text, and I explain it (and how to read the files) in how to read Instagram data download messages.

What the Instagram download doesn't include

Be careful before you rely on the export as "all my DMs":

• End-to-end encrypted chats. Instagram's encrypted DMs were never part of the standard download. They had a separate download that required secure storage and a computer. Meta retired encrypted Instagram DMs on 8 May 2026, so older encrypted threads may now be missing or impossible to retrieve.
• Vanish mode messages. These disappear by design and aren't saved.
• Unsent messages. They show up as unsent rather than with their original text.
• Chats you deleted. Deleting a conversation removes it from your side, and it may not appear in your export.

If someone else still has the conversation, their export may have it.

If the export is slow, missing or too big

• Nothing has arrived after a day or two. Open Export your information again and check the export's status there. The email can land in spam, but the download button lives in Accounts Center either way.
• The export failed or expired. Start a new one with only Messages selected. A shorter date range also helps.
• The ZIP is huge. Choose a lower media quality, or skip media and upload just message_1.json for a text-only copy. ChatToPDF takes uploads up to 150 MB and ZIPs of up to 10,000 files, so for a big account, zip only the conversation folder you need.

Turn message_1.json into a readable chat

The download is complete but hard to read: raw data, newest messages first, timestamps in milliseconds, emoji scrambled. ChatToPDF fixes those:

1. Text only: upload message_1.json from the conversation folder.
2. With photos, videos and voice notes: zip that conversation's folder (or upload the whole export ZIP) so the media comes along. Long chats split into message_1…N are merged in order.
3. Check the free preview, pick a style (chat bubbles, Clean Document, Formal / Legal, or Book), and download.

Emoji and accented letters are repaired, group chats work, shared posts appear as a link with the caption, and reactions, unsent messages and calls are shown. The Instagram chat to PDF page shows what the output looks like.

One thing to know: ChatToPDF converts one conversation per upload. If your ZIP holds many conversations, it converts the largest and tells you how to pick a different one. To get a specific chat, zip just that conversation's folder.

Pricing is one-time: $7 for text-only chats up to 5,000 messages, $14 up to 25,000 with photos, $29 with no cap, and $49 to transcribe voice notes from a ZIP. Each paid plan includes PDF, Excel and CSV. Files are deleted within 7 days, and there's a 7-day money-back guarantee.

Related guides

• Read Instagram data download messages: what to do once you've unzipped the download.
• Leaving Telegram too? Here's how to export a Telegram chat on your phone.
• Keeping iPhone texts as well? See saving text messages from iPhone to a computer.

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