Connecting Instagram

Overview

Instagram connects through Instagram's own authorisation screen. You sign in with your own login, grant Brolly access, then come back to Brolly and tick the accounts you want to archive. Brolly never sees or stores the account's password.

Before You Start

• The Instagram account must be a professional account (business or creator). Personal accounts cannot be archived
• Be signed in as one of the account's administrators

Step 1 — Choose Instagram

1. Click Settings in the left sidebar, then Connect account at the top right of the Social accounts page
2. Choose Instagram

The dialog explains that you will be redirected to Instagram to authorise Brolly and will return to choose which accounts to add, and lists what Brolly will request access to:

• Access your professional accounts
• Archive posts, reels & stories
• Archive comments & mentions

You control exactly which accounts are archived after authorising.

Step 2 — Authorise Brolly on Instagram

1. Click Continue to Instagram. You are redirected to Instagram's authorisation screen
2. Sign in if asked, and approve every permission listed. Declining one leaves the connection incomplete

Step 3 — Choose Your Accounts

While Brolly talks to Instagram the dialog shows "Authorising with Instagram..." with a loading animation. Then the Select accounts to connect step lists the professional accounts your login can administer. Nothing is archived until you choose:

1. Tick the accounts you want, or Select all. Accounts already in Brolly are listed as Already connected with no checkbox; one whose connection has lapsed shows Token expired — reconnect and can be ticked to renew it
2. Under Historic capture, leave All time selected to backfill the account's whole history, or choose Custom and pick the earliest day to capture from
3. If your organisation has more than one permission group, choose the Group
4. Click Connect n accounts (greyed out until at least one is ticked). The accounts appear in the Social accounts table as Active and capture begins straight away

There is no messages switch here — that control is Facebook's only.

After Connecting

Open the new row in the Social accounts table and check:

• Status reads Active
• Group is right. New accounts land in Organisation (default), which every team member can see. Use Change group if only some people should see this account's records. See Managing Groups

Within a few minutes the Records column starts to climb.

Stories

Instagram Stories disappear from Instagram within 24 hours unless saved as highlights, but on a connected professional account they are captured as records like any other post and appear in the Archive alongside posts and comments. If an Instagram account was connected a long time ago, the original connection may not include the permission needed for Stories; refreshing it fixes that — open the account under Settings → Accounts, click Hold, then Re-connect and sign in with the admin login. Existing records are kept throughout. See Instagram Stories on Older Connections.

Troubleshooting

• The account was not listed — either it is not a professional account, or you signed in as someone who is not one of its administrators. Check the account type in Instagram's settings, then sign in with an admin login and connect again
• A permission was declined — start again from Connect account and approve every permission the dialog listed
• You were sent back to Brolly with nothing added — the authorisation was cancelled or timed out. Click Connect account and go through it again
• The account shows Token expired later — Instagram has expired Brolly's access. Open the account and click Re-connect; capture resumes and Brolly backfills what the platform still makes available for the gap (content edited, deleted or expired in the meantime may not be recoverable, so re-connect promptly)
• Stories are not appearing — re-connect as described above. If they still do not appear, contact support@brolly.com.au

Instagram expires its authorisation periodically. Home shows a needs attention chip in the Archive at a glance row when that happens.