IG Tools (Unofficial)
A small, unofficial browser extension for Chromium-based browsers (Brave, Chrome, Edge) for instagram.com:
- an "HD photo" button on profile pages to view the profile picture in full size,
- a download button next to like / comment / share to save the photos and videos of a post, and
- a Download story button while watching stories.
Unofficial project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Instagram or Meta Platforms, Inc.
"Instagram" is a trademark of Meta Platforms, Inc. and is used here only to describe which website
the extension works on.
Features
- Floating HD photo button on profile pages.
- Full-size viewer with Download and Open in new tab. Press
Esc or click outside to close.
- Download button next to like / comment / share on posts and reels. It saves only the photo or video
you are looking at (in a carousel, the current slide), in its original quality. If the feed only has a
streamed version of a video, it asks the site for the post's details to get the full file.
- Download button in the story viewer, next to like / share (or a floating button on your own stories).
It saves the photo or video being shown.
- Audio credits in post headers: song title and artist, or original audio title and creator,
below the username and above recommendation / location subtitles. Works with photos and videos
when the page supplies audio metadata, even without a separate playable song URL. Existing native
audio links are kept without adding a duplicate. Long credits are truncated; hover for the full text.
- Follows you / Doesn't follow you label next to the username on other people's profiles. It uses
the relationship the profile page already loaded, so it adds no requests. Nothing is shown on your
own profile or when the page has not provided the relationship.
- Scan non-followers on your own profile only: lists the accounts you follow that do not follow you
back, with avatar, username and a link to the profile, and can export them as a CSV file. This is
the only feature that makes many requests of its own, and only after you press Start scan: it
reads your Followers and Following list endpoints, requesting 50 accounts per page, one request
at a time, 1.3–2.3 seconds apart, plus a 5–15 second break every 15 requests, up to 300 requests.
This uses larger pages than the website's observed 12-account pages. With 50-account responses,
879 followers and 1,074 following need 40 requests, roughly 2 minutes instead of the previous
164 requests / 9 minutes. Instagram may return smaller pages or respond more slowly. Cancel
stops it at once; it keeps running if you browse elsewhere in the same tab (reloading or closing
the tab ends it). Any HTTP 429, block / verification notice or error stops the scan completely and
shows when to try again; there is no automatic retry. Comparison is by account id, not username.
Instagram may limit or block accounts for automated activity, so use it rarely. Results stay in the tab's memory.
Select individual accounts or Select all shown, then Add to whitelist to keep them together.
Adding accounts to the whitelist and selection preserve your position in the list, including after preferences are saved.
Unfollow selected first shows the exact accounts and asks you to confirm. Only that confirmation
sends Instagram's
usePolarisUnfollowMutation for those accounts from the completed scan. Requests
run one at a time, 4–4.8 seconds apart, with an extra 5-minute break every 5 accounts (separate from
scan pacing). Cancel remaining stops the rest; a request already sent may still complete.
Only explicit relationship confirmations remove an account from the results. Limits, blocks,
errors or uncertain responses stop the batch without retrying. Check an uncertain outcome on
Instagram before trying again. Following a private account again may require its owner's approval.
Add to whitelist beside an account adds it to your whitelist (accounts you follow on purpose, such as brands or
public figures): whitelisted accounts are never listed again, by account id, even after a rename.
Verified accounts are left out unless you turn on Show verified accounts, next to Start scan (also
available on the results). The Whitelist button is always in the panel. The list and the CSV
export show what remains, with a "Not shown" count. The whitelist (up to 5,000 accounts) and this choice are
saved in the extension's own storage on your computer, which instagram.com cannot read.
- Chat themes in direct messages: the conversation's theme from the mobile app (background image,
bubble and text colors, light / dark variant) is shown on the website, which otherwise leaves it out
for some accounts. Chats without a theme are unchanged. If Instagram ever rejects the
conversation request with the theme flag, the extension stops setting it for 24 hours so
conversations keep loading.
- ♪ Music on photo posts that have a song attached (as in the mobile app): like reels, the song of the
post you are looking at plays (the exact clip the author picked, in a loop). It keeps playing as you
scroll while its photo remains visible and dominant, then switches when the next post fills about
60% of the screen height. A shorter photo takes over when fully in view. A floating ♪ button
pauses / resumes it, with a volume slider on
hover (remembered). The feed often lacks the song; see How it works for how it is found.
If the page rejects playback because no initial gesture occurred, the extension automatically
plays the same clip in its own internal audio document. No first click or site-setting change is
required for this fallback. Playback stops when the tab is hidden or closed.
- Fixes "photo + music" stories (a still image turned into a 1 fps video), which in some players stay
black for ~10 seconds: the frame timing is adjusted so the picture shows right away. Image and audio are
not re-encoded. To limit memory use, repair applies to one story at a time, with a known size up to
8 MiB. Larger or unknown-size stories are downloaded unchanged.
- No third-party websites, no ads, no copy-pasting links.
Install
Visit the installation website for a small extension-only
ZIP, browser-specific instructions and privacy policy. The site currently offers manual installation.
Once an approved Chrome Web Store listing is linked, its main button will open the store's normal
confirmed install flow, including in Brave. The extension has not been submitted to the store yet.
Manual installation
Requires a Chromium-based browser using Chromium 116 or newer.
- Download the extension ZIP from the installation website and unzip it to a permanent folder, or
clone this repository. The installable ZIP has
manifest.json directly at its root.
- Open
brave://extensions (or chrome://extensions).
- Turn on Developer mode.
- Click Load unpacked and select the folder that contains
manifest.json.
- Reload instagram.com and open a profile.
Tip: open profiles by navigating inside the site (search, links) rather than pasting a URL; that is when
the page loads the full-size picture data the extension reads.
How it works
The extension uses the media data the site loads while you browse. Downloads and music playback load
the selected media file directly from the site's media servers. For a photo post on or just below the
screen (or one you download) whose song or full video file the feed did not include, it asks the site
for that post's details, the same request the site makes when you open the post, so the song is ready
when you reach it. One post at a time, closest to the screen first, with recent lookups deduplicated.
Caches retain up to 500 recent profiles, posts and story items each; an evicted post can be loaded
again when revisited. Automatic lookups are capped per minute (20 ahead of the screen, 30 in total),
requests time out, and the extension stops its own requests after HTTP 429 (1–15 minutes) or for 15
minutes after a block, verification or "try again later" answer, with no automatic retry. Large response copies are skipped
without affecting the website's original response.
intercept.js runs in the page and reads the responses the site already downloads for you while you
browse normally, looking only for profile picture, post, story and post music URLs, and asks for a
post's details when the feed lacks them. It also reads song / original audio credits and whether a
user follows you from those same responses; displaying them does not make additional requests.
When you open a conversation, it turns on the flag in the site's own conversation request that
asks Instagram to include the chat's theme (the website has this feature but may leave it off).
No extra request is made; only that request's theme flag changes.
When you start a non-followers scan on your own profile, it requests the pages of your own
Followers / Following lists (/api/v1/friendships/<your id>/followers/ and /following/), one at a
time, and shares the post-detail lookups' queue and 429 cooldown. Confirmed selected unfollows
use the website's GraphQL mutation in the same queue; they do not start merely from scanning,
selecting accounts, opening the confirmation view or adding accounts to the whitelist.content.js shows the buttons, audio credits, the follows-you label, chat themes, the
non-followers panel and the viewer, using the data for the profile or post you are looking at.music-player.js first uses page audio, then switches to an extension-owned player if the page
returns NotAllowedError. It keeps the same volume, clip position and play / pause controls.offscreen.html / offscreen.js provide that player using the browser's offscreen API with the
AUDIO_PLAYBACK purpose. The document is bundled with the extension and loads only the selected
audio file from the site's media servers. No website is embedded in it.mp4fix.js adjusts the frame timing of small 1 fps "photo + music" story videos before they are saved.
Normal videos download directly without buffering a full copy in the tab. A fetched small story's
bytes are reused even if no repair is needed, avoiding a duplicate full-file download.background.js saves requested downloads and routes audio commands from Instagram tabs to the
internal player. Only one tab owns that player at a time; an old tab cannot stop a newer owner's song.
It only works with content the site itself sends to your browser, so it cannot reveal anything you
could not already see (your own Followers / Following lists are visible to you in those dialogs), and it does not bypass private accounts or any other access restriction. Profile
pictures are publicly visible on Instagram, and the official mobile app already lets you view them in a
larger size.
Website and store distribution
Run python scripts/build_distribution.py (Python 3.9+) to build dist/ig-tools-v2.6.2.zip and
dist/site/. The package contains only extension runtime assets, the license and privacy policy.
The GitHub Pages workflow builds this same ZIP and deploys the static site on main pushes. The
website has no analytics, third-party fonts or scripts, and no backend. GitHub serves the public site
and download, under its own hosting privacy policy.
Store submission text, original sample graphics and the remaining account steps are in
store/PUBLISHING.md. Set the real published store URL in distribution.json
after approval; the site then switches its primary CTA. No account, fee, agreement acceptance or
Chrome Web Store publication has been performed by the build scripts.
Privacy
This extension collects no data at all:
- No analytics, tracking, telemetry, or remote servers.
- Media URLs live in memory in the current tab and, during extension playback, the internal player.
The player releases its audio source when paused or disconnected. The music volume is remembered
in local storage on instagram.com; the extension does not upload it anywhere.
- Media, post-detail and (only when you start a scan) your own follower-list requests go directly to
the site's servers using your browser's existing session. No browsing data is sent to the extension
author or third-party services. Scan results are kept only in the tab's memory; a CSV is saved only
when you click Export CSV. The non-followers whitelist and the "show verified" choice are saved in
the extension's local storage and never uploaded.
- Permissions are access to
www.instagram.com (to show the buttons), downloads (to save a file
when you ask it to), offscreen (to play a song in an internal extension document) and storage
(to remember the non-followers whitelist).
See PRIVACY.md.
Autoplay diagnostics and checks
After changing the extension, reload it in brave://extensions, then reload Instagram. Put a photo
post with a song mostly in view. The extension chooses the eligible post with the largest visible
area in the feed column. A new post takes over at 60% of the viewport height; photos shorter than this
must be fully in view. The current song continues on small scrolls while its photo is still visible
and remains the largest visible post. It pauses when the photo leaves the viewport completely or
another post becomes dominant, including while the next post's own song is loading. Native videos,
reels and visible posts with audio also pause extension music when they dominate, even before their
post details are available or they reach the 60% start threshold. Navigating away or hiding the tab
also pauses it.
Hidden dialogs do not exclude the feed. Visibility is checked on scroll, photo
intersection changes and every 600 ms while the tab is visible, to catch layout shifts.
After updating to 2.3.0, reload the extension and Instagram, and leave a music post in view without
clicking ♪. If page playback is blocked, extension playback should start automatically. Scroll between
posts and switch / close tabs to check that the song changes or pauses. In the page console,
igtSongStatus() reports focus changes, playback attempts,
success and error names such as NotAllowedError. It also prints an asynchronous IG Tools music focus
snapshot with extension version, viewport size, eligible / dominant post, block / pause state,
last playback error, browser user activation and candidate photo visibility. Candidate top / bottom
and viewport-only visibility distinguish offscreen posts from ancestor clipping; clippedBy shows
the clipping boxes if a photo inside the viewport is incorrectly reduced to zero visible area.
These diagnostics stay in the tab; the layout checks make no network requests of their own.
audioEngine is page or extension. A failed fallback is reported as a playback error; it does not
change browser settings. A 1.5-second heartbeat renews a six-second playback lease. Losing the tab or
connection pauses immediately when detected; the lease stops any orphaned audio within six seconds.
The browser closes the internal document after 30 seconds without audio, per the
Offscreen API.
Run node --test tests/music-autoplay.test.js tests/extension-audio.test.js tests/resource-usage.test.js
for playback, bridge and resource regression tests (70 tests). The owner confirmed initial playback
without a click and stopping in Brave with v2.3.0, and audio credits with v2.3.1. Future playback changes
should also be checked in a logged-in browser. See Resource review for v2.3.2 limits,
validation and the scope of the checks. Playing music still uses data; usage depends on the source
files and the browser's buffering.
Responsible use
- Use it for personal, non-commercial viewing only.
- Photos and videos belong to their owners and may be protected by copyright and personality/image rights.
Do not republish, redistribute, or use other people's content without their permission.
- Stories are meant to be temporary. Do not keep or share someone else's story without their consent.
- Do not use this tool to harass, stalk, impersonate, or monitor anyone.
- You are responsible for complying with Instagram's Terms of Use and with the laws of your country.
Disclaimer
This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, under the MIT License.
The author is not responsible for how it is used. It may stop working at any time if the website changes.
If you are a rights holder and have a concern about this project, please open an issue.
License
MIT
