Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, making it a key site for social examination. Despite this, scholarly conversations about analysing Instagram data remain scarce, with existing research focusing on text-driven platforms such as Twitter.

This year, Instagram permanently disabled access to its Legacy API. For users, this has been hailed as positive, increasing privacy and control. However, such actions have unintentional impacts on research, creating significant access barriers. How researchers continue to engage with Instagram data as ‘personal data’ is a central question, particularly in light of global privacy events like Cambridge Analytica.

This article contributes to emerging discussions about approaching visual social media, responding to ethical and policy challenges of Instagram data. It details the process of accessing, archiving and anonymising Instagram data from a three-year platform study. Social research now encounters multiple commercial gatekeepers, third-party applications are pivotal, and paywalls widen access inequalities.