Carousel Downloader

One post, up to twenty independent files

A carousel is stored as a parent object with a list of children, and each child is a fully separate media item with its own identifier, dimensions, type, and URL. Nothing about the parent contains the slides themselves. This structure is the entire explanation for the most common carousel complaint — a downloader that expects one media object per post finds the cover, succeeds, and returns a single file while believing it did its job.

Mixed types in one post are normal

Slide one can be a photo and slide two a video, in any combination. Instagram normalises the aspect ratio across the whole carousel — every slide is forced to the ratio of the first — but the underlying types remain independent. A carousel download therefore legitimately returns a mixture of JPEGs and MP4s, which is correct output rather than a bug.

Aspect ratio is decided by the first slide

Whatever ratio slide one uses becomes the frame for the entire post, and every subsequent slide is cropped or padded to match at upload time. If slide four was shot landscape and slide one was 4:5 portrait, the stored version of slide four is cropped. That crop is permanent and baked into the file, so the original framing is not recoverable from the post.

Resolution is better than the feed implies

Instagram stores carousel photos at up to 1080 pixels on the long edge. What you scroll past is a compressed, downscaled preview sized for the feed, so the stored file is frequently several times larger in pixel terms. For photographers, designers, and anyone mood-boarding, this gap is the main reason to resolve the post rather than screenshotting it.

Order is preserved and worth keeping

Children come back in their published order, which matters more than it sounds: carousels are often used for step-by-step instructions, before-and-after comparisons, or multi-part explanations where sequence carries the meaning. Saving them into a folder that scrambles the order loses the point of the post.

Twenty files is still twenty people's work

Carousels are heavily used by artists and educators precisely because the format rewards effort. Saving one for reference is ordinary; splitting it into slides and re-posting them individually, stripped of the account that made them, is the kind of thing the format's popularity has made routine and is worth not doing.