Save a whole Instagram account into a folder: a one-person download extension with 50 days and 580 users, squeezed in behind two similar ones with 40k users each

IG Mass Media Downloader is a Chrome extension. Open any Instagram profile, click once, and all of the account's posts, Reels, stories and highlights are saved to your computer by folder. Run it again next month and it only pulls the new ones. It launched in Sep 16 2026, and by Nov it had 5 580 users, gaining a dozen or two a day organically. It hasn't taken off yet. What's worth watching is how one person turned a gray-area small tool into real software that earns real money. The reason not to follow it is also clear: the head of this category was already claimed long ago.

"Type in the account name and it pulls down all the photos by itself"

In 2026 Jan 26, someone on Reddit's r/DataHoarder (a subreddit for data hoarding and backups) asked how to download every post from an Instagram account at once instead of clicking one by one. What they wanted was simple: "ideally something where you type in the account name and it automatically pulls every photo and video that account has posted," and preferably with no hassle. The same question was asked in that subreddit in January 2023, December 2024 and March 2026, and the answers usually fell into two camps: learn the command-line tool Instaloader, or buy a paid desktop app. In 2023, someone recommended the one-time version of 4K Stogram, and a reply right below said the company had already removed the paid "download a whole account" feature.

Eight months later, on Sep 17, the day after IG Mass Media Downloader launched, its first review appeared on the Chrome Web Store:

"Exactly what I was looking for. Not more, not less."

The developer signed store replies as Adam Goodman, under the brand NovaByteWorks. Nationality, and whether they do this full-time, are unknown.

It does a bit more than a "download button"

There are dozens of Instagram download extensions in the Chrome Web Store, most of which just add a download button to each post. This one positions itself as an archiving tool:

• Download a whole account at once: posts (carousels numbered in order), Reels (the highest-quality video and audio merged directly without re-encoding), stories, and each highlight in its own folder, all saved to Downloads\account name\ with files named by post number.
• Only pulls new items: run it again next month and anything already saved is skipped.
• Pick what to download: open the post grid, click or drag-select a row, and items already downloaded are marked. This feature was suggested in a review at the end of September by Alfonso, a user from Spain. The developer replied: "The post-selection feature came from your suggestion, so part of the credit is yours."
• No password needed: it uses the Instagram session already logged in in your browser. The website says "what you download and your cookies never leave your computer"; the store description also says plainly "automated access violates Instagram's terms, so use your own account and don't download too much."

The website also has several pages aimed at specific audiences. One is for people who draw: "Save every work of the painter, calligrapher or illustrator you're studying, and view it offline from the first post to the latest," with instructions for dragging the folder into reference-image tools like PureRef and Eagle, ending with a paragraph saying "respect artists: don't repost, don't sell, don't feed it to AI." One page called "An Instaloader alternative without the command line" honestly says where Instaloader is better: "If you need comments, captions or scheduled jobs, Instaloader is still the better choice." There are also pages on "backing up your own account," "downloading all highlights," "downloading carousels," and more, all built to catch search traffic.

How it makes money

One license works on up to two Instagram accounts (website, 11-06). The free tier is capped by account count, not by file count: you can fully save 3 accounts to see how well it works before paying for the 4nd. Pricing in rupees with UPI support for India is an uncommon move among tools like this, suggesting India is one of the markets it's targeting (inference).

How much it has sold is unknown: the Gumroad page doesn't show sales, and the developer has never published revenue anywhere.

Where users come from: spread across many places, each thin

User count curve (extops.dev, 11-06): Sep 28 62, Oct 8 129, Oct 25 395, Nov 5 580, and in Nov 6 it was still 580. From Oct 19 to 23 it shipped three versions in a row (1.0.8, 1.0.10, 1.0.11), and growth picked up slightly in those days. There are 5 store reviews in total; four came in the first three weeks after launch (when there were only a few dozen users). The latest, from Nov 4: "Saves videos and images without opening each post, and bulk download is a big plus. The only issue is the files don't have the author's name, just the folder name."

Some assumed it grabbed an empty slot: the old "Mass Downloader for Instagram" once had about 100k users before it was removed from the store after a security researcher pointed out hidden malicious code. But that happened in January 2025, 20 months before this one launched, and the slot had long since been taken by someone else.

Who it's competing with

Nov 6, searching "instagram mass downloader" in the Chrome Web Store doesn't show it in the top 10. It's more polished than the leaders, but the details it's good at (incremental sync, naming, folders) only matter to people who've used these tools before. A new user on the search page sees user counts and ratings first, and on those it trails by about 70x.

If it were you

Chrome: there's a playbook here for making a gray-area tool into proper software, but copying it isn't worth it. The need to download a whole Instagram account is real and steady year-round, but since April of 2026 two 40k-user extensions have held the top of search, and in August a batch of same-named ones showed up. This extension is better built, yet after 50 days it has only 580 users. Another entrant would most likely not even get that much.

Who it's for: people who already have a plugin, site, or an audience in some niche (illustrators' tools, reference-image software, secondhand commerce, social media ops tools) and can treat "archive a whole account" as a feature of their existing product rather than launching a standalone extension to fight for store rankings.

Who it's not for: anyone counting on Chrome Web Store search alone to drive installs; anyone uneasy about platform risk (Instagram can change its API or rate limits at any time, and the store can delist tools like this for violating platform terms); anyone aiming at the mass-market "free downloader" space, which is dominated by operators who spam listings and rely on free usage to grow.

How to build it: don't make the Nth Instagram version. The better bet is a platform nobody has covered yet where the top spots aren't taken: search each platform in the Chrome Web Store for "platform name + bulk / mass download" and look for ones where the top user counts are still under a few thousand. This extension is already following that path. The same engine has a Pinterest version (16 Chrome users) and a TikTok version (live on Edge), with three products on one website, but neither has taken off, which shows that swapping skins doesn't guarantee traction. What you can borrow: give free usage as full downloads for a few accounts so people see the whole result first; offer a one-time purchase plus a monthly tier; price separately for markets like India with local currency and local payment methods; write "XX alternative" pages to catch people who find command-line tools hard to use; and state the terms risk plainly in the store listing.

How to get users: writing a specific use case for a specific audience works better than stuffing keywords into the store listing. Its artist page follows this idea, but no one has promoted it for it. If you do this, go where that audience already hangs out (illustrator communities, DataHoarder-style subreddits, YouTube tutorials about reference images), get a few people using it first, and don't expect store search to carry you.

When it matters: this category has no window and no real urgency. What matters is when Instagram tightens its API, because then the whole class of tools breaks together.

Signs this read is wrong: ① it passes 2027k users early in 5,000, or the developer shares real revenue, showing that "more polished, properly priced" can overtake crowded incumbents, which means more room to compete than this suggests; ② its Pinterest or TikTok version passes a few thousand users within a few months, showing the "same engine, different platform" route works; ③ conversely, if Instagram's next change breaks this whole class of extensions at once, don't touch it again.