How to save an Instagram or TikTok link so you find it again
September 20, 2026
You saw the right recipe, the right shelf, the right restaurant, in a video. You tapped the little flag, and three weeks later you scroll past a hundred posts without finding it. Here is how to copy the link, and where to put it so it comes back.
Copy the link to an Instagram post
Instagram’s help center describes one procedure, the same on iPhone and on Android. Its own page is not quite consistent about which icon you tap first, so look for whichever of the two you see.
- 1Open the post, the reel or the photo you want to keep.
- 2Tap the Options icon, the three dots next to the post. On some versions the same choice sits behind the Send icon, the paper plane below the post.
- 3Tap Copy link. The address is now in your clipboard.
On a computer the same icon opens the same menu from instagram.com. Watch out for one case: if the account that published is private, the link you copied will only open for that account’s followers. It will work for you; for the person you send it to, not necessarily.
A link copied from the share button often ends with a chunk starting with “igsh”. That is a sharing identifier, not part of the address. People have reported on Reddit that it can reveal who shared the link. You can cut everything after the question mark before sending it: in most reported cases the shortened link still opens the same post.
Copying the link to a whole profile is less clear. Instagram documents sending a profile as a message, but no official page spells out a copy-the-URL step, so if your app does not offer it, the reliable fallback is to read the profile on instagram.com and copy the address from the browser bar.
Copy the link to a TikTok video
TikTok’s support pages describe the same gesture for both phones. The page stops at “choose how you’d like to share”, so the exact tile you tap is the one your app shows you.
- 1Go to the post, then tap the Share button on the side of the video.
- 2In the menu that opens, choose to copy the link. It is usually the first tile in the row of sharing options.
- 3To keep a whole account rather than one video: go to the profile, then tap the profile picture or Share at the top.
For your own profile the path is Profile at the bottom, then Share profile. According to several developer reports, addresses copied from TikTok also carry tracking parameters. The same reflex applies: cut after the question mark.
Why Saved and Favorites are not enough
Both apps offer their own list. They are handy in the moment, and fragile afterward, for four reasons.
- Each one lives in its own corner. What you found ends up split between Instagram, TikTok, your bookmarks and your screenshots, and no single search sees all of them.
- They are not searchable by words. You cannot type “brass shelf” into your saved posts: you have to scroll.
- You cannot add anything. No note, no “for Mathilde’s room”, nothing that reminds you why you kept it.
- They depend on the post. If its author takes it down, or turns the account private, what you saved can become unreachable. A blog that documented its Instagram export in March 2026 put it plainly: “I had 20 saved posts, now I have none”.
Instagram states in its own help center that Saved is not available on computers, only in the app on phone and iPad. And if you ask Instagram to download your information, what comes back for saved posts is reported to be a file of addresses rather than the images, though Instagram does not document that category precisely. Either way: the day you leave, you get bare links.
Where to put the link so it comes back
Once the address is copied, paste it where you already keep everything else, not into a fourth list.
- 1Paste the link into Trouvé. The card is built in under two seconds: the video’s image, a readable title, two lines.
- 2Add your note in one sentence, the one that will tell you in six months why you kept it.
- 3File it in a folder, and check a collection if it belongs to a project: Living room, Rome, Mathilde’s birthday.
The point is not to have one more list. It is that the TikTok video, the news article, the recipe and the lamp spotted in a shop can finally be searched from the same bar, in your own words. And because the card is on our side, it stays readable even if the video is taken down.
On iPhone the Trouvé shortcut sits in the share sheet: you no longer even have to copy the link, you share the video straight to Trouvé.
Keep the thing, not the address
In Trouvé, a link becomes a card: its image, a short title, two lines and your own note, kept on our side. The day the page goes away, the card stays. Free up to 50 finds, then €29, one payment.
Paste a link to seeQuestions
- Do you download the video?
- No. We keep the cover image, a short title, an excerpt and your note. The video stays with Instagram or TikTok, and the link still leads there.
- What if the account is private?
- The link will only open for that account’s followers, with us as anywhere else. The card keeps what it was able to read, and your note stays readable in every case.
- Can I bring in all my saved posts at once?
- Instagram can hand you the list inside a download of your information, in the form of a file of links. There is no automatic import from Instagram here today: links are pasted one by one, or into the paste field.
- Should I remove the end of the link before pasting it?
- Not for keeping the card. It is useful before sending a link to someone, because that ending is a sharing identifier rather than part of the address.
The stories, twice a month
One letter about a link kept long before it helped. Twice a month, nothing else. One click stops it.