How to Turn Your Instagram into a Family History Book
Remember when family photos lived in a shoebox under the bed? Today they live on Instagram. Birthday cakes, first days of school, the blurry fireworks picture everyone takes every Fourth of July. For a lot of families, Instagram has quietly become the family journal, complete with captions.
There’s just one problem. If you forget your password, get hacked, or the app goes the way of MySpace, years of memories go with it. And I doubt your great-grandkids will be scrolling your feed in 2090. A printed book fixes both problems, and it’s easier than you might think.
First, what changed
If you tried this a few years ago, you may remember apps that grabbed your Instagram photos automatically. In December 2024, Instagram shut off the connection most of those apps relied on, and some popular ones (Chatbooks, for example) can’t import from Instagram anymore.
The good news is that there are still trustworthy ways to do it. Here are the ones I’d use, from the easiest to the most private.
Option 1: A service that imports your posts for you
These services pull in your photos and your captions, then lay them out in date order, so the book reads like your feed. You preview it, remove anything you don’t want, design a cover, and they mail you the finished book.
My Social Book
My Social Book has been printing social media books since 2010 and has thousands of reviews. It builds a book from your photos, captions, dates and locations, in softcover or hardcover. It can also make a separate book from your Facebook timeline.
The catch: since the 2024 change, Instagram only lets outside services like this connect to a “professional” account. So before you start, you’ll switch your account to a free Creator account in Instagram’s settings. It’s free, takes about a minute, and doesn’t change your posts or followers. You can switch back to a personal account when your book is done. At the time of writing, a softcover starts around $33 and a hardcover around $53.
BlookUp
BlookUp makes a square book that looks a lot like your Instagram grid, with your photos and captions. It also prints blogs and Facebook books. Your account needs to be public while it imports your posts. A 100-page book started around $27 when I checked, which is a good price for that many pages.
PixxiBook
PixxiBook just needs your Instagram name (like @smithfamily), and your account has to be public while it builds your preview. It keeps your captions and dates, and you can pick posts by date range or hashtag. That’s handy if your family used a tag like #SmithReunion2025.
If your account is normally private (and with kids in the pictures, many are), switching it to public means anyone can see your posts while it’s open. If you do it, switch back to private as soon as the import is finished. Or skip the switch entirely and use Option 2.
Option 2: Download your Instagram and make the book yourself
This route works with any account, public or private, and you never hand your login to anyone. Instagram will give you a copy of everything you’ve ever posted:
- In the Instagram app, go to your profile, tap the menu (☰), and open Accounts Center.
- Choose Your information and permissions, then Download your information (sometimes called Export your information).
- Pick your Instagram account, choose your posts or everything, and set the format to HTML and the media quality to High.
- Instagram emails you when your download is ready. It can take a couple of days, and the download link expires after a few days, so grab it when it arrives.
Open the file on your computer and you’ll see every post with its date and caption. Then upload the photos you want to any photo book maker:
- Shutterfly and Mixbook are easy to use and run sales constantly (never pay full price).
- Artifact Uprising costs more, but the paper and simple, classic designs are a step up. It’s nice for a book you plan to keep for generations.
- Chatbooks makes small, inexpensive books straight from your phone’s photos. They’re great for a quick “this year in pictures” book.
You’ll need to copy over the captions you want to keep. That’s a little more work, but it’s also a chance to fix the ones that only made sense at the time (“lol, you had to be there”).
Bonus: you now have a complete backup of your Instagram. Save it with the rest of your family history files. Our lesson on naming, saving and backing up files shows how.
Instagram shrinks every photo you post. That’s fine for small pictures (a few to a page), but for a big, full-page photo, use the original from your phone, iCloud or Google Photos. It’ll print much sharper.
What about Facebook and other social media?
Facebook is where a lot of grandparents post, so it’s worth saving too:
- My Social Book prints your Facebook timeline as its own book, with posts, photos and dates.
- BlookUp offers a Facebook profile book, and a “Top 100” book of your most-liked posts.
- Do it yourself: Facebook has the same Download your information option in Accounts Center, and it works just like the Instagram steps above.
Keep a blog instead? See How to Turn Your Blog into a Book.
Which option is right for you?
| Option | How it gets your posts | Keeps captions and dates | Facebook books | Starting price* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| My Social Book | Connects to a free Creator account | Yes | Yes | About $33 |
| BlookUp | Connects while your account is public | Captions, yes | Yes | About $27 |
| PixxiBook | Your public @name | Yes | No | See site |
| Download + Shutterfly, Mixbook, Artifact Uprising or Chatbooks | Instagram’s own download | You add them | Yes, same steps | Varies; watch for sales |
*Prices change often; these were the starting prices when we checked in October 2026.
Make it a family history book, not just a photo book
A few small touches turn a pile of pictures into something your descendants will treasure:
- Add names, dates and places. “Me and the cousins” is cute today. “Emma, Jack and Lily Smith at Grandpa’s farm in Ogden, Utah, July 2025” is family history.
- Write a short opening page. Who’s in the family this year, where you live, what everyone’s into. It takes ten minutes, and it’s the page your grandkids will read first.
- Make one book per year. Put the year on the spine. A shelf of them is a family history all by itself.
- Be choosy. If your feed has 40 pictures of lattes and sunsets, your family might not get as big of a kick out of reading it. Keep the people and the moments.
- Ask before including other people’s kids, especially if you’re sharing the book beyond your family.
- Print an extra copy for the grandparents, and keep one somewhere safe, away from the others.
Your Instagram feed may be the best family journal you’ve ever kept, even if you never thought of it that way. Print a year, put it on the shelf, and you’ll be glad you did. For more ideas, see Create a Family History Book and 30 Days to a Meaningful Journal.