Instagram Protects Edit Feature So It Can't Be Used For TikTok Content, Must Post First On Reels

Instagram restricts video editing to reels. (photo; doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Instagram seems to be getting tired of content creators making their videos on Reels and then switching to TikTok. While using Reels this week, The Verge discovered that when trying to download an edited clip to an iPhone, the audio from the clip disappeared.

This means if a user wants to export a recording from Reel for use in another app, then the user must actually post on Reel first to save the sound.

As recently as late July, it was indeed possible to download clips with audio and use them in separate apps, for example on TikTok, without posting them first on Reels Instagram.

Speaking from this experience, the tools in the TikTok app are not very useful for further editing. TikTok doesn't let you use some filters when starting out with footage filmed outside of their app, and it doesn't let you download unfinished or watermarked clips. YouTube Shorts also recently added this watermark requirement.

To get around this, TikTok users can jump to Instagram, which has a similar feature for Reels. Users can use Instagram's green screen effect, which is more flexible to edit than the TikTok version, then download the clip and send it to TikTok.

This trick is used by content creators both as a way to bypass TikTok's terrible editing tools and as a way to use Instagram-only features or video filters.

While all of these steps make filming for content creators a bit more time-consuming, relying on downloaded Instagram clips is one of the easiest ways to create more dynamic TikTok videos while still using filters.

Without the ability to download clips with sound, users are now faced with two choices: rely entirely on the lousy TikTok editing software just to use certain features or upload to Instagram Reels.

This change comes after Instagram temporarily reverted to a TikTok-esque algorithm change. But it's still a sign that Instagram is determined to steal the throne of the short-form video platform TikTok currently dominates.