Settings reference

This page describes every option on the Settings page. The defaults work well for most people. Every option except those under Behaviour corresponds to an InstaloaderSharp command-line option, which is named in brackets in the program and below.

Contents

• File naming
• Caption text files
• Resuming interrupted downloads
• Connection
• Behaviour
• Command line
• About

File naming

Option	Default	Effect	Command line
Folder name pattern	{target}	Name of the folder posts are stored in; may contain subfolders and an absolute path	--dirname-pattern
File name pattern	{date_utc}_UTC	File names of posts and story items, relative to the folder	--filename-pattern
Title pattern	{date_utc}_UTC_{typename}	File names of profile pictures, hashtag pictures and highlight covers	--title-pattern
Sanitize paths	Off	Also make names valid on Linux and macOS	--sanitize-paths

Insert next to each pattern inserts a placeholder at the cursor. See File and folder names.

Caption text files

Option	Default	Effect	Command line
Post text template	empty: the caption	What to write into each post's .txt file; each line of the box becomes one line in the file	--post-metadata-txt (once per line)
Story item text template	empty: no file	What to write into each story item's .txt file	--storyitem-metadata-txt (once per line)

These templates cannot be used while Captions is off on the Download page. See Caption file templates.

Resuming interrupted downloads

Option	Default	Effect	Command line
Resume interrupted downloads	On	When a download stops early, save where it was in a resume file, and continue from there next time	--no-resume when off
Resume file prefix	iterator	Name prefix of the resume files	--resume-prefix
Use aged resume files	Off	Also resume from resume files that are older than the last successful download	--use-aged-resume-files

The last two are only available while resuming is on. See Running a download and Interrupting and resuming in the InstaloaderSharp manual.

Connection

Option	Default	Effect	Command line
Pause between requests	On	Wait between requests to respect Instagram's rate limits. Turning this off greatly increases the risk of being blocked	--no-sleep when off
Use iPhone API	On	When signed in, download higher-quality pictures and videos through Instagram's app interface	--no-iphone when off
Maximum connection attempts	3	Attempts for a failing request before it is given up; 0 retries forever	--max-connection-attempts
Request timeout	300	Seconds to wait for an answer from Instagram	--request-timeout
Abort on HTTP status codes	none	Comma-separated HTTP status codes that stop the download immediately, for example 302,400,429	--abort-on
User agent	InstaloaderSharp's default (shown in grey)	The browser identification sent to Instagram	--user-agent

The values are checked before a download starts, and a problem is shown in the status bar right away: Maximum connection attempts must be a whole number of 0 or more, Request timeout a positive number of seconds (decimals with a point, 12.5), and Abort on HTTP status codes a list of codes between 100 and 599.

Keep Pause between requests on. With InstaloaderSharp 1.1.3 or later, signed-in downloads allow half as many requests in the same time as signed-out ones, so large downloads take longer. See Rate limits and connections in the InstaloaderSharp manual for how the program paces requests, retries and what each status code means.

Behaviour

Option	Default	Effect	Command line
Quiet mode	Off	Only show errors in the output, no progress messages. The progress bars and counters on the Activity page then have little to go on	--quiet
Keep the computer awake	On	Prevent Windows from going to sleep while a download is running	(GUI only)
Notify when finished	On	Flash the taskbar button and play a sound when a download ends while the window is in the background	(GUI only)

In quiet mode, the GUI still asks for a password or two-factor code when needed (InstaloaderSharp's console would fail instead).

Command line

Button	Does
(the box)	Shows the InstaloaderSharp command that does the same as your current targets and options
Copy	Copies the command
Save args file…	Saves the options and targets as an InstaloaderSharp argument file
Import command line…	Applies an InstaloaderSharp or Instaloader command line
Import args file…	Applies an argument file (+args.txt)
Reset to defaults	Resets all options; your targets, download folder and sign-in method are kept

See Command line and the GUI.

About

Row	Shows
InstaloaderSharp GUI version	The GUI's version, with a GitHub button for its repository
InstaloaderSharp version	The version of the InstaloaderSharp.exe that is actually loaded, with a GitHub button
Data folders	Where sessions and latest stamps (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Instaloader) and the GUI's settings (%LOCALAPPDATA%\InstaloaderSharpGUI) are stored, with an Open button
Documentation	Opens this manual, the InstaloaderSharp GUI wiki

Please include both versions when you report a problem; see Compatibility with InstaloaderSharp.