Get stories and highlights from a username
- Find the username. It is the handle at the top of the profile, like
username- not the display name printed in bold under the profile picture. - Make the profile address. Write
instagram.com/followed by the username, without the @ - for exampleinstagram.com/username. You can leave out https. - Send the address to the bot. Send just the address, with nothing else in the message, to @MoeinimyDL_bot.
- Pick a button. The bot shows three: profile picture, stories and highlights. Stories sends every story the account has up right now.
- Choose a highlight. Highlights lists the account's highlights by name; tap one and every story inside it arrives in order.
People search for "download a story by username" because the Instagram app makes other people's story links awkward to get, while everyone knows the username. The bot works from a profile address, and a profile address is nothing more than the username after instagram.com/. The feature itself is described on the Instagram Story Downloader page.
Why the username alone is not enough
Send just @username or username and the bot sees ordinary text - and any message that is not a link, the bot treats as the name of a song to search for. So the username has to be inside a profile address. The same goes for extra words: "stories from instagram.com/username" is not read as a link either, because the link is not at the start of the message.
Copy the profile link from Instagram
If you would rather not type it, open the profile in the Instagram app, tap the ⋯ menu at the top and choose Copy profile URL. The copied link may end in something like ?igsh=; that does not matter, the bot takes the username from it.
A few things about usernames:
- Dots and underscores are part of the name:
ali.photoandali_photoare two different accounts. Type it exactly. - Do not put the @ in the address.
instagram.com/@usernamedoes not work.
What each button gets you
- Stories - every story the account has live right now, in order; photos as photos, videos as videos.
- Highlights - the account's highlights, two to a row, most with the number of stories inside. You pick one at a time. For more, see the Instagram Highlights Downloader.
- Profile picture - the account's profile picture, at the largest size available.
The account owner is not told: the bot fetches the story, not you, so your name never appears in the viewer list.
Messages you might see
- No active stories right now - the account has not posted a story in the last 24 hours. Try its highlights.
- The account is private - stories and highlights on a private account are for its followers and cannot be downloaded.
- No highlights - the account has none on its profile.
- Stories need an Instagram account - Instagram shows stories and highlights only to signed-in users, and the bot uses its own account for them. This message means that account is briefly unavailable. Try again a little later; the account's posts and reels still download in the meantime.
- That menu is stale - you tapped buttons on an old message. Send the profile address again.
In the bot, not on the website
Stories, highlights and profile pictures work only in the Telegram bot. Paste a profile address or a story link on the website and it says so, with a button that hands the job to the bot. The reason: all three use the bot's Instagram account, and keeping that account healthy means keeping its traffic low and human-paced.
The same account's reels and posts download with their own links, on the website and in the bot - see the Instagram Reel Downloader.
Want yesterday's story?
A story leaves Instagram after 24 hours, and after that no downloader can get it - unless its owner saved it to a highlight. So if a story matters to you, save it the same day. The copy in your Telegram chat does not disappear when the story does.
To start, open the Instagram Story Downloader or send the profile address straight to the bot.
