How Much Data Does Instagram Use?

Reels, Stories and autoplay make Instagram one of the heavier apps on a phone. How Instagram's data saver works and how to see what it uses on your plan.

4 min readUpdated

The short answer

More than it used to. Instagram was once mostly photos; now Reels, Stories and videos in the feed make it one of the heavier apps on most phones. Instagram doesn't publish a figure, and your usage depends on how much video you watch and at what quality.

Instagram's data saver setting stops videos loading in advance and lowers media quality, which makes a real difference on mobile data.

Where Instagram's data goes

  • Reels. Full-screen video that plays back to back, like TikTok. This is usually the biggest part.
  • Stories. Short videos and photos that Instagram loads ahead so they play without waiting.
  • Feed videos. Videos in your feed start playing as you scroll past.
  • Uploads. Posting photos and videos, especially at high quality.

Scrolling photos uses much less than watching video, so two people who both "use Instagram for an hour" can use very different amounts.

Turn on Instagram's data saver

  1. 1Go to your profile and tap the menu icon at the top right to open Settings and activity.
  2. 2Open Data usage and media quality.
  3. 3Turn on Use less cellular data (called Data saver or Use less mobile data on some phones).
  4. 4On the same screen, turn off Upload at highest quality if you post often on mobile data.

With data saver on, videos won't load before you tap them, and photos and videos may take a little longer to appear. Menu names change between versions; if you can't find it, search Instagram's settings for "data".

Other ways to use less

  • Keep long Reels sessions for Wi-Fi.
  • Post and upload when you're on Wi-Fi.
  • On Android, restrict Instagram's background data so it can't refresh your feed while it's closed.
Measuring beats guessing. Note Instagram's figure in your phone's per-app data list, use it normally for ten minutes on mobile data, and check the difference. How to Track Your Data Usage shows where to look.

Summary

  • Reels, Stories and feed videos make Instagram a heavy app; photos alone use much less.
  • Instagram doesn't publish a figure, so measure your own with a ten-minute test.
  • Settings and activity > Data usage and media quality > Use less cellular data.
  • Turn off highest-quality uploads and keep long sessions for Wi-Fi.

Sources

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