Instagram finally launches feature users have been crying out for, for years…

Instagram is desperate for an edge over rival social platform TikTok and has even offered thousands of dollars to popular TikTok creators in recent years, hoping to lure them into its own short video feature, Reels.

Now Instagram has belatedly added a long-wanted feature to Reels to make it more competitive: the ability to download short videos from Reels to repost them to the rest of social media.

The ability for TikTok users to download watermarked versions of their favorite videos and post them anywhere online has greatly helped catapult the Chinese platform from a niche social site to a global phenomenon.

Instagram hopes to use the same strategy to attract new users to Reels while easing the concerns of its most privacy-conscious members.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri posted an announcement about the new download feature for Reels on his own Instagram on Tuesday, using the platform’s new “broadcast channels” feature.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri posted an announcement about the new download feature for Reels on his own Instagram on Tuesday, using the platform’s new “broadcast channels” feature.

Mosseri noted that the feature protects private accounts by preventing their followers from downloading and distributing their reels, and that public Instagram accounts can disable the new feature if they wish.

For now, Mosseri wrote, the feature will only be available in the US, but if previous updates are any indication, users will be able to download Reels worldwide in the near future.

Instagram users can access the feature, the CEO said, by tapping the “Share” icon for the desired reel and clicking “Download.”

Last August, YouTube took similar steps to catch up with TikTok — when they started adding watermarks to their similar YouTube ‘Shorts’ feature downloads.

While Mosseri did not explicitly state that the platform would watermark downloaded reels, the posted examples were the first to be noticed TechCrunchdid show videos with an Instagram logo and the user’s account name.

In February 2021, Instagram told creators it would begin focusing specifically on watermarked clips and remove them from other platforms, such as TikTok.

So their new move suggests that with their new Reels feature, Instagram itself may well be at risk of ranking retaliation.