Documentation, Reference Materials and Tutorials for Imagely
Imagely’s Instagram integration builds a gallery from your own Instagram posts. You connect your account once, choose how many photos to pull in, and Imagely downloads them to your server. Because the images are stored locally, they work with every display type, lightbox, watermark, and proofing option; the same as photos you upload yourself.
Before you start
Go to Imagely → Features in your WordPress admin sidebar.
Find the Instagram card. If the button reads Activate, click it to turn the feature on. If it already reads Deactivate (as shown above), Instagram is ready to use – continue to Step 2.
Navigate to Imagely → Settings → Integrations and expand the Instagram card using the arrow on the right.
Click Connect to Instagram. You’ll be taken to Instagram’s own login and permission screen. Sign in with the account whose photos you want to use and approve the request. Instagram sends you straight back to the Integrations page when you’re done.
Tip: You can connect up to 3 Instagram accounts. The panel shows how many slots you’ve used, and each gallery picks one account to pull from.
Your account now appears under Connected Accounts, with the slot number and the date you connected it.
Go to Imagely → Galleries and click Add a New Gallery.
Type a name for your gallery, then click the Instagram tile. Imagely creates the gallery right away and opens the gallery editor on the Images step.
The Images step holds every option that controls what Imagely pulls from Instagram.
Leave Default Settings selected to use the site-wide values (see Setting Defaults below), or choose Custom Settings to set them for this gallery only.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Instagram Account | Which connected account this gallery pulls from. |
| Number of Instagram Photos | How many photos to fetch. Videos don’t count toward this number because they aren’t imported. |
| Overriding Link? | What happens when a visitor clicks a photo: No link uses your lightbox, Original Page at Instagram opens the post on Instagram, and Direct Full Sized Image On Site opens the full-size image file. |
| Image Size | Which WordPress image size the gallery displays, from Thumbnail up to Original Image. |
| Use Photo Title? | Turn on to carry the Instagram caption over as the photo’s title and alt text. Turn off for photos with no caption. |
| Limit Caption Length | Cuts long captions to this many words. |
| Cache Data from Instagram? | Recommended. Imagely stores the response for about an hour instead of calling Instagram on every page load. |
Click Next step when you’re happy with the settings.
On the Customize step, choose how the gallery should look. The preview on the right fills with your Instagram photos so you can compare layouts before you commit.
Adjust the options underneath – images per page, number of columns, and so on – then click Next step.
On the Settings step you can rename the gallery, add a description, and turn on eCommerce. Click Update to save.
Imagely confirms the gallery is ready and shows its shortcode. Copy that shortcode into any page, post, or widget – or add the gallery with the Imagely Gallery block in the editor.
If most of your Instagram galleries should look alike, set the values once instead of per gallery. Go to Imagely → Settings → Integrations, expand the Instagram card, and open the Configure tab.
Every gallery left on Default Settings follows these values. Galleries switched to Custom Settings keep their own.
Both cleanup actions live at the bottom of the Instagram card in Imagely → Settings → Integrations.
Neither action changes anything on Instagram itself – only what’s stored in WordPress. Both are permanent, so export or re-create any gallery you want to keep first.
Do I need a business account? Yes. Instagram only lets apps read media from a Professional account, which means Business or Creator. Personal accounts can’t be connected. Switching is free and takes a minute in the Instagram app.
How many Instagram accounts can I connect? Three. Each one takes a slot, and each gallery pulls from a single account.
Is my Instagram password stored in WordPress? No. The connection uses Instagram’s own login screen, and only an encrypted access token comes back to your site.
Are videos and Reels imported? No. Imagely skips them and keeps looking further back through your posts until it has the number of photos you asked for. Carousel posts add their first image and share the post’s caption.
How often does the gallery update with new posts? With caching on, Imagely refreshes the data about once an hour, so new posts show up shortly after you publish them. Turning Cache Data from Instagram? off makes every page load fetch live data – accurate, but slower for visitors.
What happens if I lower the number of photos? The gallery keeps the most recent photos up to the new limit and removes the rest.
Do I have to reconnect my account periodically? Usually not. Imagely renews the access token in the background while the connection is in use. If a gallery stops updating, open Imagely → Settings → Integrations and reconnect the account.
Where do the photos actually live? In your gallery folder on your own server, the same place as uploaded images. That’s why Instagram photos work with lightboxes, watermarks, sorting, and the rest of NextGEN’s features.
Can I use the same Instagram account in more than one gallery? Yes. Create as many galleries as you like from one account, each with its own photo count, layout, and link behavior.
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