If you are an avid Instagram user, then you might have heard of Instagram Wrapped. These are personalized summaries of your Instagram activity in the past year, much like Spotify Wrapped. But what is it and how does it work? Is it an official feature from Instagram or a third-party app? And most importantly, is it safe to use?
Instagram Wrapped or more accurately, Wrapped for Instagram, is not an official feature from Meta or Instagram. It is a third-party app that claims to generate an Instagram Wrapped story based on your Instagram data. At the time of writing, it is only available on iOS devices. Android users might need to wait awhile before it becomes available on the Google Play Store.
The app connects to your Instagram account and accesses your data to “generate your wrapped” and create your Wrapped story, which you can then share on Instagram and other social media platforms.
However, before you rush to download it and see your Instagram Wrapped story, you might want to think twice about the risks involved. The app collects a lot of data from you, such as personally identifiable information, your IP addresses, device name, cookies, and more.
According to their privacy policy (which, by the way, is on a different URL), the app uses third-party services that may collect information used to identify you. They claim that your data is safe and that it does its best to protect your personal information, however, it “cannot guarantee its absolute security.”
This means that your data could be exposed to hackers, advertisers, or other malicious parties. You could also be violating Instagram’s terms of service, which prohibit you from using third-party apps that access your Instagram account without their permission. You could risk losing your Instagram account.
Should you download Wrapped for Instagram? Well, that’s up to you. But as far as we can tell, the app comes with a lot of risks.
If you want to see your Instagram highlights, just use official Instagram features, such as the Year in Review.
