As the nature of Instagram is a one of spontaneity (at least in theory), the idea behind an Instagram post was originally meant to be something current, and in the moment. That’s sort of shifted as Instagram has become an editorial destination and one of living breathing portfolios for photographers, and in an effort to keep the posts as perfect as possible, sometimes they require a bit of work. In fact, Instagram now, has lost much of its casual nature given how much of a marketing platform it is, and Instagramming for maximum impact is a bit of a science; we want to post the right image, tweaked right, with the right tags, text, captions, hashtags, and at the right time. IG has been rolling out, in a manner of A/B testing, a new Save Draft feature which will come to the aid of serious IG’ers and, well, anyone.
One of the issues any Instagram user would face when posting was the irritating limitation of IG that would see all your visual and textual edits made to an image lost, should you exit out of IG by accident, or even accidentally go back to a prior screen. If you wanted to upload a photo, but then were distracted and wanted to come back to it, you were essentially forced to ‘Discard Edits’, and that’s irritating. Now, however, you don’t.
For a few weeks, various users have been reporting sporadic implementation of the Save Draft feature, and not only within the US, but worldwide. Some users reported the feature came only to vanish soon after, and others who have multiple accounts would see it available for one but not others, as is the case with me. Only one of the Instagram accounts I handle have the feature, but happy to report that once it arrived it has not gone.
That said, there’s no guarantee it will remain given IG has a history of testing the waters with new features, and pulling them at their whim and discretion. This is especially a possibility for this feature given it doesn’t require a version update to appear, and thus doesn’t need one to vanish, but unlikely.
So how does it work and what does it look like?
The Instagram Save Draft feature needs little explanation and anyone with even the IQ of a cabbage will figure it out, but,essentially, as you select an image to upload, you can change the visual parameters of the image and hit the ‘back’ arrow and a dialogue box will appear giving you the option to ‘Save Draft’, whereas before, you’d just have to Discard Edits. It also works if you’ve finished the visual alterations to the image and are in the text/share screen, which is a huge welcome so you don’t have to re-write anything.
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Once you click Save Draft, the drafts then appear within a new line under your primary viewing section of the screen, and the next time you open IG it will be there for you to tap on and you continue as if you never left. Check it out and see if it’s something you’ve got, and what else you’d want from IG.
