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Instagram

Wait
Hours
You get
message_1.json files, in one or more .zip
Rough size
Hundreds of MB — nearly all of it attachments

Everything Buho reads out of it lands in Messages.

Same form as Messenger, on the Instagram side of the Accounts Center. The archives look identical; Buho tells them apart on its own.

Instagram's export page accountscenter.instagram.com ↗
  1. Choose Download or transfer information, then pick your Instagram account.
  2. Select Some of your information and tick Messages. Anything else you tick is simply ignored — no harm in taking it.
  3. Set the three settings above, then request the download.
  4. Meta emails you when it's ready, usually within a few hours.

Get these right

Format
JSON
Date range
All time
Defaults to the last few months, which throws away most of your history.
Media quality
Low

Large exports are split into several zip files — download all of them and drop them here together, or you’ll be missing conversations.

Unpack an archive and drop the thread files alone and the folder names go with it — the service then reads as "unknown".

Drop your export here

The .zip as it arrived, the unzipped folder, or loose files. Buho works out which export it is, so you never have to say — and reads it here, in this tab, without uploading any of it.