How to Use Save Drafts for Instagram

An image of a person looking at Instagram on a smartphone.

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by Brad Puet
Has written for the Huffington Post and other outlets about music and photography. His commercial photography has appeared in the Washington Post, VICE, and Slate.
Updated December 06, 2018

"Save Drafts" is probably one of the most requested Instagram feature by daily power users and social media strategists. Sure it is a step away from the "instant" gratification that Instagram is based on but it's really a must-have.

What is Save Drafts?

In a nutshell, this means you are now able to begin working on an Insta post, then save it as a copy with your edits on the photo and edits on text to be completed later. Before this feature was rolled out, this essential feature was not available. If you tried to leave your post, then you would have to return and start over.

Let's get a little more detailed on how you can access and use the "save draft" feature.

  1. First, launch your Instagram and either take a photo or use one from your camera roll. Hit the Edit feature and make some of the edits you would normally do - setting your contrast, playing with the fade, straightening or even cropping - whatever suits your fancy.
  2. Once you are happy with the photo edits you can move onto the caption and type out your hashtags. For some folks, the caption or title is just as important for posting on Instagram so if you are one of those folks - I'd suggest typing out your text in a notepad first. Once you are happy and have your text formatting set in those apps, you can then copy and paste into your post on Instagram. 
  3. So for the purpose of this article, instead of moving forward and hitting "next," hit the back button to leave. A pop-up window will appear asking you to keep the post and save to drafts or trash it. 
  4. A warning will also appear stating, "If you go back now, your image edits will be discarded."
  5. Again for the purpose of this article, press "keep" and the post will go straight into your drafts. You can now come back to it later. You can always trash it all together later but for now, its saved for later.

    Your drafts are saved onto your smartphone and not on Instagrams servers.

    One thing to remember is images that have had some edits or posts that you have added some text to are the only ones available to be saved to drafts. Those that have not been edited will not have the option to be saved.