Get the transcript of any Instagram Reel

An Instagram Reels transcript is the fastest way to study a video. Reading a script takes a quarter of the time watching does, and text can be searched, quoted and pasted into your own draft.

Sort Feed adds a Transcribe button to Reels on Instagram itself. One click, and what was said is on screen as text.

Why you want the text

Most of what makes a Reel work is in the words. The hook is a sentence, the structure is a sequence of sentences, and the call to action is the last one.

Watching thirty Reels to compare hooks takes half an hour and leaves you with a vague impression. Reading thirty first lines takes two minutes and leaves you with a list.

• Collect hooks from the Reels that performed, word for word.
• See how a script is paced: where the turn comes, how long the setup runs.
• Quote a creator accurately in a brief or a deck.
• Search a set of scripts for a phrase or a product name.

Transcribe one Reel

Hover a Reel and click Transcribe. It works while you browse a profile, with no sort involved, and on a Reel opened from a shared link.

A banner shows progress, then the transcript is there to read and copy.

If you are watching in the player, Transcribe is on the action row beside the video. A long video comes back as a partial transcript with a note saying how much you got.

Transcribe a whole shortlist

One Reel at a time is fine for curiosity. Research is usually a batch.

Sort a profile, click Select on the banner, and tick the Reels you care about. Then choose Export + Transcripts. Sort Feed works through the selection and writes each script into the export beside that Reel's numbers.

The result is one spreadsheet with the link, the views, the likes and the full script on every row. It keeps running while you do something else, and Stop ends the run and keeps everything already finished.

Working from the text

With the scripts in a sheet, the first column to read is the opening line of each one. Sort the sheet by views and the hooks that worked sit at the top, in the creator's exact words.

Then read two or three scripts in full and mark where each one turns: the setup, the point, the ask. Most creators reuse one structure across their best Reels, and it is far easier to see on a page than on a screen.

What it costs

Transcription is a Pro feature, and it's unlimited. Transcribe one Reel or every Reel on a profile, as often as you like. Plans & billing has the plan.

If a Reel has no spoken audio, the banner says "No speech found". The same banner tells you when a job times out, so you can run it again.

Where the audio goes

Transcription is the one part of Sort Feed that does not run in your browser. The Reel's audio goes to Sort Feed's transcription service, and the text comes back.

Nothing else is sent. Your Instagram password is never involved, and sorting, exporting and downloading all stay on your computer.

Other platforms

The same button works on TikTok and Facebook. TikTok is the quickest of the three, because it publishes the audio track on its own. Transcribing videos in the docs covers bulk runs and what each message means.