What You Need To Know About Saving Instagram Live Videos

Live streams are huge on social media, making things more up-close and personal than ever before. Instagram's live video feature, for instance, enables users to interact directly with creators, allowing viewers to comment and send their likes throughout the duration of the live stream. But can you save someone else's Instagram live video? If, say, Kylie Jenner or Chrissy Teigen throws your handle a shoutout, you'll definitely want to archive the moment forever for, you know, posterity and stuff.

According to Instagram, you can't technically save someone else's live videos. In a March 2017 blog post regarding the feature, Instagram said users have the ability to save their own live videos. "You’ll have the option to save your live video to your phone at the end of a broadcast," Instagram explains. "While live videos will continue to disappear from the app when you’re done, this update gives you the flexibility to hold onto your video and re-watch it later."

The method for how to save your own Instagram live video is pretty simple. Post-broadcast, you can tap "Save" and then "Done," downloading the video to your phone's camera roll. Unfortunately, though, the functionality is still pretty limited as "you’ll only be able to save your video — not the comments, likes, number of viewers or any live interactions" that happened while you were broadcasting live on Instagram.

Seeing that users are already limited in what Instagram will and won't allow to be saved for their own videos, you've probably already guessed that saving someone else's Instagram live video is off the table. Currently, you're not even allowed to save someone else's already-published Instagram Story, aside from grabbing screenshots. Thus, for the time being, it seems like live videos can only officially be saved by the streamers themselves.

If you're absolutely hellbent on saving someone else's Instagram live video, there's, um, a "workaround" at your disposal. First, if you have an iPhone, you can use the "screen recording" feature to record your favorite celebrity's live stream. To do so, you just need to go to your phone's control center and tap on the record icon (one dot inside a circle). It'll then give you a 3-2-1 countdown until it begins recording what's on your screen.

If you want to save someone else's Instagram Story, you can download the Chrome IG Story extension to your browser. From here, you can view users' Stories, notification-free. In order to save the stories, right click on the user's circular, IG-story icon, and click "Download." From there, you should have a file saved to your PC. You can, of course, also take screenshots directly on your phone.

In the grand scheme of things, Instagram's relatively late to the game. Facebook and Periscope have allowed live videos to be saved by their respective creators for some time, so it's anyone's guess as to why it took the app more time to get on board. Many think that saving the live videos defeats the whole purpose of it being "live", but remember: Instagram live stories will still disappear after 24 hours like usual.

For now, it seems that those looking to save a Kylie Jenner shout-out will have to be a little clever to save those live moments.