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How to Copy Comments from Instagram (iPhone, Android and Desktop)

By Daniel, founder of Adlicio · Oct 26, 2026 · 6 min read

On this page

• Copy one comment on a computer
• Copy one comment on iPhone
• Copy one comment on Android
• Why Instagram makes copying hard
• Find the comments you wrote
• Copy or export all the comments on a post
• FAQ

Short answer: on a computer, open the post on instagram.com, select the comment with your mouse and copy it. On a phone, take a screenshot of the comment and copy the text from the picture: Live Text in the Photos app on iPhone, Google Lens in Google Photos on Android. To copy every comment on a post at once, paste the post link into the free Instagram comment viewer and download the comments as a CSV.

You want to translate a comment, quote a customer, save a question for later or collect giveaway entries, and the Instagram app does not make it easy. Here is what works on each device, checked October 26, 2026.

Copy one comment on a computer

This is the easiest place to do it, because the comments on instagram.com are ordinary text in your browser.

1. ✓Open the post on instagram.com in Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox. If you have the link from the app, paste it into the browser bar.
2. ✓Find the comment. If a long one ends in "more", click it so the whole text is on screen.
3. ✓Drag your mouse over the comment text to select it.
4. ✓Press Ctrl+C on Windows or Cmd+C on a Mac, or right-click and choose Copy.

Instagram may ask you to log in before it shows the comments.

Copy one comment on iPhone

Press and hold the comment first and check whether your menu has a Copy option. Instagram's Help Center describes that menu for deleting, reporting and restricting comments (delete a comment, report a comment) and does not mention copying. If yours has no Copy, use Live Text, which works on any text in a picture:

1. ✓Take a screenshot of the comment: press the side button and the volume up button at the same time (Apple).
2. ✓Open the screenshot in the Photos app.
3. ✓Touch and hold a word, then move the grab points to cover the whole comment.
4. ✓Tap Copy. To take all the text in the picture, tap Select All.

Live Text needs an iPhone XS, iPhone XR or later with iOS 15 or later, according to Apple's Live Text guide. Check the copied text before you paste it: emoji and unusual fonts do not always come through.

Copy one comment on Android

The same press-and-hold check applies. If there is no Copy option, copy the text from a screenshot with Google Lens:

1. ✓Take a screenshot of the comment. On most Android phones, press and hold the power and volume down buttons (Instagram Help).
2. ✓Open the Google Photos app and select the screenshot.
3. ✓At the top, tap More, then Google Lens.
4. ✓Tap and select the words you want, then copy them (Google Lens help).

Menus differ between phone brands, so your Photos or Gallery app may offer its own text button. Any of them works the same way.

Why Instagram makes copying hard

Instagram has not said why. Its Help Center uses press and hold on a comment for deleting, reporting and restricting it, and many people find no way to select the text in the app, while the same comment in a browser selects like any web page. A caption or comment in another language has a See Translation link under it (Instagram Help), which covers one of the most common reasons people want to copy a comment in the first place.

Find the comments you wrote

If you are looking for your own comment, Instagram keeps a list: go to your profile, tap the menu, then Your activity, Interactions and Comments (Instagram Help). You can open each post from there and copy the comment with one of the methods above.

Instagram also lets you export a copy of your information: Meta Account or Accounts Center, then Your information and permissions, then Export your information (Instagram Help). It can take up to 30 days for the link to arrive, and Instagram says the export "won't include information that someone else shared", so it is not a way to collect the comments other people left on a post.

Copy or export all the comments on a post

Copying comments one by one stops making sense after about ten. The free Instagram comment viewer loads a public post's comments into a list you can copy from or download:

1. ✓In the app, tap the three dots or the paper plane on the post and choose Copy link. On a computer, copy the address from the browser bar.
2. ✓Paste the link into the viewer. It works with posts, Reels and carousels, including the short share links.
3. ✓Read, search and sort. Type a word or a username to narrow the list, and sort by likes to see what the audience agreed with.
4. ✓Click Download CSV. The file holds the author, like count, comment text, date and a link to each comment, and it opens in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers.

From the spreadsheet you can copy any comment, a column of usernames or the whole thread. If you searched first, the file holds only the matching comments.

What is free: the viewer shows the top 100 comments of a post, plus the replies Instagram shows with them, most liked first. Each visitor gets three free pulls a week, and a free Adlicio account gets 30 a day. You never log in to Instagram, and the account owner is not notified.

Posts with more than 100 comments: the viewer offers a full export, which collects up to 2,000 comments of the post into a CSV and saves it in your Adlicio History. Exports need a free Adlicio account and come in one-time packs: 3 exports for $5 or 10 for $9, with no subscription.

What no tool can copy: comments on private accounts, close friends posts, comments the creator hid or limited, and comments Instagram removed. If a post shows no comments in the viewer, one of those is usually the reason.

For a draw from the same comments, the Instagram giveaway picker loads them, applies your entry rules and picks a winner. The comment viewer hub has the same viewer for TikTok, YouTube, X, Reddit and more.

FAQ

Can you copy a comment on Instagram? Yes. On a computer, select the comment on instagram.com and copy it. On a phone, press and hold the comment to see whether your menu offers Copy, and if it does not, screenshot the comment and copy the text with Live Text on iPhone or Google Lens on Android.

How do I copy all comments from an Instagram post? Paste the post link into the free Instagram comment viewer and download the CSV. It holds the top 100 comments with their replies. For larger posts, a full export collects up to 2,000.

Can I export Instagram comments to Excel? Yes. The CSV from the comment viewer opens directly in Excel and Google Sheets, with one comment per row.

Can I copy comments from a private account? No. Comments on private accounts are visible only to approved followers, and no viewer or export tool can read them.

Does the account owner know I used the comment viewer? No. Reading public comments is not an action Instagram reports, and the comment viewer never logs in to Instagram.

Can I copy a comment's link? The viewer's CSV includes a link to each comment, so you can copy the link from the spreadsheet and open the comment on Instagram.

Why does Live Text or Google Lens get some letters wrong? Both read the text from a picture. Small fonts, emoji and stylized letters confuse them, so zoom in before you take the screenshot and check the result before you paste it.