Oh, you’re here because you captured the image of someone’s Instagram Story and want to know if they’ll get a notification about the screenshot, à la Snapchat? We’ve all been there, but they’re not going to find out if you took a screenshot of their grid post or story, at least not through a notification. There are a few instances where an Instagram user might be made aware that you’re sharing their content, though, or at least filing it away for later. Here’s everything you need to know about taking screenshots, saving, and sharing in Instagram, so you can lurk in relative peace.

Can you screenshot someone’s Instagram Story or grid post?

If you screenshot someone’s grid or Story post, they do not get a notification. Ditto for screen-recording a video post. For better or worse, I am extremely good at creeping around on the app; I do it all the time. If any of the people whose content I was saving got a notification about it, I’d know by now. And I’d tell you. 

Can you screenshot Instagram direct messages?

This is where things get dicey. In a standard Instagram direct message, you can screenshot with no problems. If you toggle on vanish mode, however, you lose that ability. This is a new change to vanish mode that appears to have only gone into effect within the past few weeks. I saw a few people posting about it and tested it myself. It’s true: If someone screenshots your chat thread in vanish mode, you get a notification that says, “@theperson took a screenshot.” If you screenshot the thread, you also see the notification that “you took a screenshot.”

It makes sense because vanish mode is supposed to be more private. When you toggle it on (by holding the bottom of your screen and dragging up within the thread), all the messages you send and receive in that chat disappear when you back out of the screen. The other person you’re chatting with is supposed to have a reasonable expectation that their messages won’t stick around for long, so it stands to reason they deserve to know if you took a recording.

This does not apply to messages that are sent in chat threads without vanish mode turned on. It looks like this:

The new way Instagram narcs on you.
Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram

Has Instagram ever alerted users to other screenshots of their content?

That said, there used to be one other way people could see if you’d taken a screenshot of something on Instagram. It was minor, but that’s what made it insidious: Up until very recently, if someone sent a photo directly to you via Instagram direct messaging, using the in-DM camera feature, and you took a screenshot of it, they would get a notification. It looked like this: 

The old way Instagram used to narc on you.
Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram

To demonstrate how that looked, I asked my recipient to screenshot the first picture I sent and to open and view, but not screenshot, the second. The photos were sent in real time, using the camera icon in the bottom left, next to the typing box. As you can see, a little circle icon (it looks like a camera shutter) appeared next to the first one, which meant a screenshot was taken of it. A photo taken with the regular camera and sent from the camera roll did not produce a screenshot notification.

Why am I telling you this? Instagram only recently changed this, but it did so in phases. The last time I checked, three months ago, if you screenshot a photo taken with the in-app camera, there was no longer a notification. Now, Instagram prevents it with a pop-up message that says, “You can’t screenshot or record this. It’s only meant to be replayed once.” If the sender toggles on the “replay” option for the photo taken with the in-app camera and the receiver screenshots that, there is still no notification. That’s a major change from just a year ago, when a notification would pop up, so this is clearly something always in flux. If and when it changes again, I’ll let you know.

Other ways to see if people are sharing your Instagram content

Taking screenshots on Instagram is safe, as we’ve discovered, but there are other ways a person might be able to figure out if you’re disseminating their content or saving it for future review. Technically, you’ll still be anonymous, but it could be traced back to you with a little bad luck.

If you have a business account, not a personal one, you have access to some additional features that can come in handy if you want to know whether people are sharing your content among themselves. Under your grid posts, you’ll see a button that says “View insights.” Tapping this will bring you to a page that shows how many accounts were reached, how many were engaged, how many people tapped through to see your profile, how many were following you already, and all kinds of other interesting data. You’ll also see, right at the top, a string of four numbers: How many accounts liked it, how many comments it got, how many shares it got, and how many saves it got.

Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram

The shares and saves are important here. The rightward facing arrow that looks like a paper plane is your shares. The rectangle with a triangular cutout that looks like a bookmark is your saves. If you check this, you can’t see who is sharing or saving it, but you can get a sense of how many opps (or fans!) you have. Above, see that nine people shared my post and six saved it. What were their intentions? These are the questions that keep me up at night, but alas, I may never uncover the culprits.

Bear in mind that if you save or share a post—meaning you send it to someone else via DM, share it to your own Story, or copy the link to send it to someone off-app—if the person has a business profile, they’ll at least know someone did. Depending on the content of the post and how many followers they have, they could narrow it down to you. (To check if someone has a business account, tap their profile. If there’s a descriptor under their name, like Journalist, Blogger, or Public figure, or buttons like “Contact,” they have a business profile.)

If you’re the one worried someone has shared your post with ill intentions, don’t get ahead of yourself. Ask yourself first if you shared your own post to your Story, which would count as a share and increase the number next to that paper plane icon.

Speaking of Stories, anyone with a business profile can also see the data related to their Story posts, both when the posts are active in the 24 hours after they are shared and in the Story archive. Next to the eye-shaped icon that indicates viewers, there will be an icon with three rectangles that looks like a bar graph. It reveals how many accounts were reached, how many engaged with the post, how many replies it got, etc. It also reveals shares. Below is an example of a time one of my Stories got 11 shares. I was able to figure out who shared it by looking through the views and taking note of the viewers who were not my followers. Sensing nasty intentions, I blocked the original sharer. If you share someone’s Story in-app, the accounts with whom you share it will appear on the story’s viewership list, which could easily implicate you. 

Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram

Does any of this matter? No, we should all launch our phones into the nearest trash can Sabrina van der Woodsen-style and go touch grass. But there are ways people can sniff out whether you’re sharing or saving their Instagram posts, even though they won’t get a notification if you screenshot. 

If you get an email from PayPal, proceed with caution: Scammers are using a legitimate PayPal address to send fraudulent purchase notifications to users in an attempt to gain remote access to your computer by convincing you to download malware.

The phishing emails are being sent from service@paypal.com, which makes them seem real—but as Bleeping Computer reports, scammers have managed to exploit PayPal settings in order to trick recipients.

How to spot the PayPal scam

Users targeted for this scam are receiving emails from PayPal notifying them that they’ve added a new mailing address to their account. According to Bleeping Computer, users who received this message did not actually add new addresses to PayPal, and in some cases, these notices are being sent to email addresses that aren’t even linked to a PayPal account at all.

The phishing email also includes variations of the following message:

“Confirmation: Your shipping address for the MacBook M4 Max 1 TB ($1098.95) has been changed. If you did not authorize this update, please reach out to PayPal at +1-888-668-2508′”

Scammers are hoping users will call the number to reach PayPal support about a suspected fraudulent MacBook purchase. But if you do, you’ll speak with someone who will scare you into believing your account has been hacked and direct you to download and run software to fix it. Instead, though, scams like this intend to take over your system in order to run malware and steal money and/or personal information.

Obviously, a phishing email received from a legitimate PayPal address is worrisome—plus, it can get past security and spam filters. As Bleeping Computer’s reporting found, the scammers are first utilizing the platform’s “gift address” feature (which is just an additional shipping address you can add to your account) and then automatically forwarding the confirmation with the fraudulent message through a mailing list so it looks like it came from PayPal.

How to avoid falling victim to the PayPal scam

One way to identify phishing scams is to check the address that the message is sent from, which may seem legit on the surface but clearly not when you look closer. In this case, that may not help much, but you should always be wary of messages that provoke an emotional response (like fear).

If you get this email, you can ignore and delete it, though you can log into your PayPal account by going directly to the website or app and make sure nothing has been added to your account. Do not click links or call phone numbers listed in suspicious emails—instead, go directly to the website to access your account and locate official customer service channels if needed. Finally, never download anything from a suspicious email to your device.