Launched in mid 2017, Instagram Saves allows you to save other people’s posts within your account. Alternatively, people can also save your posts. You may have noticed the little bookmark icon underneath every posted image or video clip. Hitting this icon saves the post to a personal library that you can access at any time.

While not as flashy as Stories or Reels, Instagram Saves can be a super useful tool if you’re spending a lot of time on Instagram. Not familiar with Saves? Below are a few attributes and reasons to use this feature.

Inspiration

As a photographer, I love to save images that catch my eye or inspire me. If an image causes me to stop scrolling and spend some time looking at it, I might decide to save it.

Whether it be creative composition or lighting, or something that I might want to try myself, I save it. Going through these images at a later date can be a good way to find inspiration if I’m lacking in that department. You can find your saved posts by hitting the Menu button on the top right of your profile, and then clicking “Saved.”

Your saved posts are located in the drop down menu on the top right of your profile.

Captions

Sometimes I save a post just for the caption or content attached to it. It may be a “how I got the shot” type of caption, or an interesting story that I want to reference again.

From technical to humor or information, if there’s some sort of content that I want to be able to go back to, I’ll save it.

Technical captions can be great to save for future reference.

Engagement metrics

Instagram said goodbye to displaying the number of “likes” on each post. But now, as with “likes” and comments, the more Saves you get on a post, the more people it will be exposed to through Instagram’s algorithm. Some people refer to Saves as “super-likes.”

If your post gets saved by a lot of people, Instagram sees this as an indicator of a good quality post, therefore bumping up its visibility in the algorithm. Saves can also be a good way for you to see which content of yours people are really connecting with.

Collections

Going a step further, you can create collections of your saved images. If you start saving a lot of posts, you can begin categorizing them to make finding them easier. You can have collections from different photographers, physical locations, styles of photography … the options are unlimited. Collections are essentially personalized libraries of all of your favorite Instagram content.

Collections make it easy to organize your saved posts.

Whether an avid scroller, or a photographer posting your images, Instagram Saves can be a great asset to use. From creating collections of inspiration or supporting your favorite photographers by saving their posts, try using the Save function next time you’re on Instagram.