How to make Instagram Reels, step by step

These are the steps in the Instagram app on a phone, as Instagram's Help Center gives them:

1. Open the reels camera. Tap Create (the plus), or swipe right from your feed, and choose Reel.
2. Record, or add a video. Tap the camera, then hold the record button to film a clip, or tap it once to start and again to stop. Each press makes another clip, and they add up to one reel. To use a video you already have, tap your camera roll in the bottom left. While you record, the tool menu on the left includes Music, Effects, Speed, Layout, Length (how long the next clip records, after a countdown), Dual camera (front and back at once) and Align, which shows the end of your last clip so the next one lines up.
3. Add the extras. Tap Next, then Audio for music, Text for words on screen, Stickers (the Captions sticker is one) and Effects.
4. Edit on the timeline. Tap Edit video in the bottom left. Your clips, text, stickers and music sit on one timeline: tap a piece to change it, hold it to move it, drag a clip's ends to trim it, and tap Add clips or Reorder. Crop scales, crops and rotates a clip, and undo and redo go back up to 20 steps.
5. Finish and share. Tap Next. Tap Edit cover to pick the cover, write a caption, add a location and choose whether to share to Facebook. More options holds closed captions and whether others can download your reel or use it as a template. Then tap Share, or Save draft to finish later.

Drafts are saved on your phone: you can't open one on another device, even signed in to your account, and uninstalling the app deletes them. On iPhone, First draft (after you pick your clips, before the editor) trims your videos into clips for you to reorder, remove or trim. On a computer, click Create, then Post, then Select from computer: sliders let you pick a cover from the clip and trim its ends, and the video posts as a reel.

Reels have grown longer. In January 2025, Instagram said reels of up to 3 minutes could be recommended to people who don't follow you; before, the limit was 90 seconds. Its Help Center now says you can record and edit reels of up to 20 minutes, from one clip or many, but reels over 3 minutes won't be recommended to new audiences. The rest of the rules:

Turn on Upload at highest quality (your profile, then Menu, then Media quality) and Instagram always uploads your reels at the highest quality, though it notes that can take longer. How long a reel should actually be, as opposed to how long it can be, is in how long a short video should be, and every app's sizes side by side in video sizes for TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

• Templates. A template gives you another reel's music and timing, and you drop in your own photos or clips. In the reels camera, tap Templates, pick one, tap Add media and choose your clips in order; Replace media swaps one. Tap “Template by” on a reel you see to use it. Only reels with music and at least 3 clips can be templates.
• Audio. Search Instagram's music library and choose which part of the song plays (with its lyrics on screen, where they're available), use your own sound, or record a voiceover. Instagram lists music from its library and original audio among what it looks for in reels it recommends. To mix in your own track before you upload, the free add music to video tool sets the music's volume, fades and loops, and can lower it when someone talks; you need the rights to the song.
• Text. Tap the text tool, type, then set the alignment, color, highlight and animation, the size (slide on the left) and the font (swipe along the bottom). In English, in some countries, Text-to-Speech reads a line out in a voice you pick. To place text clear of the buttons before you upload, use add text to video; more ideas are in how to add text to a video.
• Stickers. Tap Stickers for polls, questions, quizzes, Add Yours, GIFs and more. Not every sticker works on reels.
• Captions. The Captions sticker transcribes the reel's speech and puts it on screen: tap it to change the color and font, and tap it twice, then a word, to fix a mistake. Separately, closed captions are written by speech recognition and shown at the bottom; turn them on or off, and their translations, under More options before you share, or by editing the reel later.

Edits is Instagram's own video editing app, free for iPhone and Android, out since April 22, 2025. You sign in with your Instagram account. It's for when the editor inside Instagram isn't enough:

• A timeline of layers. Every clip, sound, text and sticker is its own layer: split it, change its speed or volume, replace it, duplicate it or slip it.
• Generated captions. Tap Captions, choose the language spoken and a style, set punctuation and title case, and tap Generate Captions; then edit them and move them.
• More tools than the app. Audio from Instagram's library or your own files, a voiceover with an on-screen script, color controls (white balance, curves, color wheels), effects, overlays, sound effects and Cutout, which can remove a video's background.
• Export and share. Pick the resolution and frame rate, download it, or tap Share to Instagram to post it as a reel or save it as an Instagram draft. Instagram said at launch that Edits exports without a watermark; reels you share from it show an icon saying they were made with Edits.

Edits also shows insights on the reels you've shared and a feed of trending reels whose audio you can reuse. A year in, in April 2026, Instagram said it had shipped over 130 features, so expect the tool list to keep moving.

You don't have to edit in Instagram. Make the reel in CapCut, Premiere Pro or anything else, then upload it from your camera roll (Create, Reel, then the camera roll) or from a computer (Create, Post, Select from computer). Get the file right first:

• Export 1080 × 1920, 9:16, as an MP4 (H.264 video, AAC sound) at the frame rate you filmed, 30 fps or more.
• Go vertical properly. A 16:9 video posted as it is fills only 32% of the screen. Crop or fit it with the free vertical video converter; which suits your footage is in how to convert a horizontal video to vertical.
• Keep text off the edges. Instagram's username, caption and audio sit over the bottom of a reel, and its buttons down the right: keep faces and text out of roughly the bottom 420, top 220 and right 120 pixels. Instagram doesn't publish exact margins, so these are our estimates, rounded up a little, since they shift between phones and app updates. Check a frame with the safe zone checker.
• Post a clean file. Instagram shows reels with borders, logos or watermarks less often, and blurry or low-resolution ones too. Upload your own export, not a video saved from TikTok, and not a screen recording.

Captions burned into the picture show the same everywhere, which matters if you post the file to TikTok and Shorts as well. How the three apps compare is in TikTok vs Reels vs Shorts.

If you already make long videos (a podcast, a YouTube channel, streams, talks), each one holds several reels, and the filming is done. By hand, each reel takes four jobs:

1. Find the moments that make sense on their own, to someone who's never seen you: a story, a strong opinion, an answer to a question.
2. Cut each one to start on its strongest line and end when the thought does, with the free video trimmer.
3. Frame it 9:16 on whoever's talking, moving the crop when they move or someone else speaks.
4. Caption every word, and check it.

That's where the time goes, and it's what Clyper does. Paste a YouTube link (public or unlisted, 1 minute to 4 hours) or upload the file. Clyper reads the transcript and picks the moments that stand on their own, cuts each on whole sentences, scores its hook, frames it 9:16 on whoever's talking and captions every word, in 50+ languages. You get 1080 × 1920 MP4s with no watermark, the size Instagram asks for, with up to one clip for every 2 minutes of video and 30 in all. Trim or extend a clip and fix a caption in its editor, then post them yourself: Clyper doesn't post or schedule, or write the caption you post with each reel.

If the video is yours, the clips are your own original content. If it's someone else's, you need their permission, and Instagram recommends unoriginal reels less, so add something of your own; what counts is in how to get more views on Instagram Reels. To send people from the reels to the full video, see how to share a YouTube video on Instagram.

• Pick the cover now. Tap Edit cover and choose a frame, or add an image (420 × 654 is the size Instagram recommends). Instagram says you can't change it after you upload.
• Write a caption that says what it is. Instagram's tips for being found in search are to put relevant keywords in your content, your caption, your bio and your hashtags. You can use up to 5 hashtags on a post.
• Open on the point. Instagram's advice is a hook in the first 3 seconds and reels that make sense to people who don't know you, since many of the people who see a reel don't follow you.
• Try a trial reel. Tap Trial before you share, and the reel goes only to people who don't follow you, with insights within 24 hours; share it to everyone if it does well, or let Instagram do that automatically. You need a public account with at least 200 followers (professional) or 1,000 (personal). Make it a new reel: Instagram may limit a trial of something you've already shared.
• Post regularly. Instagram calls posting consistently one of the most effective ways to grow, because each reel can reach people who don't follow you yet.

What Instagram ranks reels on, what it shows less and how to read your insights is in how to get more views on Instagram Reels. Whether reels can earn you money (Instagram doesn't pay per view) is in how much Instagram pays.