Instagram gives you no way to save the audio from a reel. Screen-recording gets you a video with the interface on top of it, and the "save" button only bookmarks the post. Samplecut takes the link instead: paste a reel's URL, see its audio as a waveform, drag a selection across the part you want, and download it as a WAV or an MP3.
Free, in the browser, no account and nothing to install. Here is the flow, and an honest list of what Instagram will and will not hand over.
Step 1 — Copy the reel link and paste it in
In the app, open the reel, tap the share arrow and choose Copy link. In a desktop browser the address bar already holds it — a reel URL looks like instagram.com/reel/ABC123xyz/.
Paste it into the editor and press Extract Audio. The audio is pulled server-side and drawn as an interactive waveform, usually within a few seconds.
Step 2 — Drag a selection over the part you want
The highlighted region on the waveform is your cut:
- Drag its edges to set the start and end.
- Click to seek, then play or loop the selection to check the boundaries by ear.
- Zoom in when you need a precise edge — on a spoken line, the gap between words is visible in the peaks.
If you want the whole reel rather than a piece of it, skip the trimming: the download menu offers the full track alongside the selection.
Step 3 — Download it as WAV or MP3
MP3 at 320 kbps is the compact option and plays on anything. WAV is uncompressed and is the one to take if the audio is going into an editor — no further generation loss on the way in.
The usual caveat applies and is worth stating plainly: Instagram serves compressed audio, so a WAV here is a lossless copy of what Instagram sends, not of the original recording.
Reels and posts work — stories and highlights do not
What works: reels and ordinary feed posts that contain video, from a public account, pasted as the link Instagram itself gives you.
What does not:
- Stories and highlights. They live behind a different, session-bound endpoint rather than a public post URL, so there is nothing to fetch from a pasted link.
- Private accounts. If the post is not visible to a logged-out visitor, it is not visible to the extractor either.
- Image-only posts. No video, no audio track — nothing to pull.
There are no captions or transcripts on this path either. What you get is the audio, and the waveform to cut it with.
Keeping the cut, and who owns the sound
Add cut banks the current selection so you can take more than one piece out of the same reel without extracting it again — each banked cut renames and downloads on its own. Publishing a cut (the only action that asks you to sign in) gives it a permanent page and a link you can send to someone.
The audio belongs to whoever made it, and on a reel that is frequently a licensed track rather than the poster. Personal use is one thing; republishing or monetising what you cut needs the rights.
Working with longer material? Cut audio from a YouTube video covers the same editor where the precision of the trim does more work.
Frequently asked questions
Can I download the audio from an Instagram reel?
Yes — paste the reel’s link, and you can download its audio as a WAV or a 320 kbps MP3, either the whole track or just the section you select on the waveform. It is free and needs no account.
Does it work on stories or highlights?
No. Stories and highlights are served through a different, session-bound endpoint rather than a public post URL, so a pasted link has nothing to fetch. Reels and video feed posts from public accounts are what works.
Do I need to log in to Instagram, or to anything?
No. Nothing here asks for your Instagram credentials, and extracting, trimming and downloading need no Samplecut account either. Signing in covers one optional thing: publishing a cut to get a permanent link.
Why did a reel fail to extract?
Most often the post is private, deleted, or from an account that is not public — if it does not open in a logged-out browser tab, it will not extract. Image-only posts fail too, because there is no audio track in them.