What Does Embed Mean on Instagram?
On Instagram, “Embed” means showing a post, Reel or profile on another website with a short piece of code. The post isn’t copied to that site. It keeps loading from Instagram, with the owner’s username and a link back to the original. Only content from public accounts can be embedded (Instagram Help), and you get the code on instagram.com in a browser, not in the app.
How to embed an Instagram post or Reel
- Open the post on instagram.com, on a computer or in your phone’s browser. The Instagram app has no Embed option.
- Click the three dots (…) at the top right of the post.
- Choose Embed.
- Tick or untick Include caption.
- Click Copy embed code and paste it into your website’s HTML. In WordPress, use a Custom HTML block (Testimonial.to, Jetpack).
Embed a profile
On a profile page on instagram.com, click the three dots next to the username, choose Embed and copy the code. Profile embeds started in the US in December 2021 (TechCrunch), so the option may not appear in every country.
An embed shows one post or a profile preview, not a live feed. For ways to show a whole feed on a site, see our social media feed examples.
What can’t be embedded
- posts from private accounts
- Stories
- posts from inactive or age-restricted accounts
- posts from accounts that turned embeds off
Meta’s developer documentation lists these limits (Meta for Developers).
Turn off embeds for your account
If your account is public, you can stop websites from embedding your posts and profile (Instagram Help). The switch is called Website embeds and sits under Sharing and reuse: in the app, go to your profile, tap the menu and look in your settings; on instagram.com, it’s in your profile settings. It applies to your whole account. When Instagram added the option in 2021, it said existing embeds would stop showing, but that this could take some time (Rangefinder).
What happens when the original changes
An embed depends on the original post. If the owner deletes it or makes the account private, it stops appearing on the sites that embedded it (Copyright Lately).
Is it allowed to embed someone else’s post?
Instagram doesn’t grant websites a license for other people’s content. In 2020 Facebook said it doesn’t give a sublicense for its embed feature, and that sites need the rights from the owner (Engadget). Courts disagree: in 2023 a US appeals court protected embedders in Hunley v. Instagram, while some district courts in New York and Texas have rejected the same reasoning (Davis Wright Tremaine). The safest options are to embed your own posts or ask the owner first. This isn’t legal advice.
Do views from an embed count?
Instagram doesn’t say. Meta’s documentation defines views as the number of times a post was played on Instagram and doesn’t mention embeds (Meta for Developers).
FAQ
Can I embed an Instagram post from the app?
No. Open instagram.com in a browser, on a computer or on your phone.
Why don’t I see the Embed option?
You may be in the app, or the post may be from a private account, be a Story, or come from an account that turned embeds off.
Is embedding the same as sharing?
No. Sharing sends a post in a message or to a Story inside Instagram. Embedding shows it on a website. See how to see who shared your Instagram post.
Does an embed copy the photo to my website?
No. The photo or video stays on Instagram’s servers and loads from there.