Description
Nostalgie is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Instagram or Meta.
Instagram will hand you your entire history as a ZIP file, a perfect keepsake
you can’t actually look at. Nostalgie unpacks that download onto your own
WordPress site so you can finally use it.
Your posts and carousels are imported with their original dates, captions,
hashtags and emoji, and every media file is stored privately: Nostalgie
writes a deny rule over its own uploads folder, so the files are not publicly
addressable. They reach a browser only through a protected endpoint that checks
permission first, and only on the pages you choose to put them on.
Your export stays the master copy. Nostalgie reads it and never changes it.
Imports are safe to repeat: duplicates are detected and skipped, and anything
you’ve organised afterwards is preserved. You can clear everything and rebuild
from your ZIP at any time.
What it does
- Imports posts, carousels and archived posts from the official Instagram
data export, either through WP-CLI or a browser importer that batches its work
so large archives don’t time out. - Keeps the details right. Original timestamps (posts are backdated to when
you posted them), captions with full emoji fidelity, hashtags, and the place
name you tagged when posting. - Protects your media. Files are denied at the web-server level and served
only through a permission-checked endpoint with proper range support, so video
scrubbing and browser caching still work. - Displays anywhere. Drop a photo, video or a whole carousel into any page
or post with the[nostalgie]block or shortcode. Media is addressed by
stable Instagram ids, so your embeds keep working even after you clear and
re-import. - Pick media by looking at it. The block opens your imported archive and
lets you search it by caption, hashtag or tagged place, so you never have to
know a filename. The Media Library gives your imports their own filter
(images, videos, carousels, stories, archived) and offers a ready-to-paste
block for any single file. - Says what an import will store, before it runs. Both the Import button
and the WP-CLI command show what will land on your server, who will be able
to see it, and what looking after it means for you. - Works with AI assistants. Nostalgie registers a WordPress ability, so an
assistant connected to your site can find a post by what you wrote, the
hashtags you used, or the place you tagged, and hand back the exact block to
paste in. Read-only, and limited to users who can already edit posts. - Generates video cover images with ffmpeg when your host provides it, and
degrades gracefully when it doesn’t.
Privacy
Nostalgie does not connect to Instagram, log in to anything, or sync live
data. It reads the export file you downloaded yourself. The free edition makes
no outbound network requests at all, so nothing about your archive leaves your
server.
Nostalgie Pro
A paid edition makes your archive searchable. It imports the deeper parts of the
export (stories, comments and direct messages) and adds a gallery app on your own
domain where you can search all of it, put your photos on a map, and browse by
hashtag or by what you posted on this day in earlier years. Every account is
private unless you say otherwise, several accounts can live on one site, and
anything you do choose to make public gets a shareable embed. The free edition
described here is complete in itself: nothing above is disabled or time-limited.
Not affiliated with Instagram
Nostalgie is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or
sponsored by Instagram or Meta Platforms, Inc. “Instagram” is used only to
describe the data-export format this plugin reads.
Screenshots
Blocks
This plugin provides 1 block.
- Nostalgie Media Show media from your imported Instagram archive: a whole post or carousel, or just some of its items. Pick it visually; no ids to look up.
Installation
- Upload the plugin to
/wp-content/plugins/nostalgie/, or install it through the WordPress Plugins screen. - Activate it. Activation creates the database tables and writes the deny rule that keeps your imported media private.
- Request your data export from Instagram (Settings Accounts Centre Your information and permissions Download your information). Choose JSON format. Nostalgie cannot read the HTML export.
- Go to Nostalgie Import in your admin and upload the ZIP, or run wp nostalgie import /path/to/export.zip if you prefer WP-CLI.
- Add media to a page with the Nostalgie Media block, or the [nostalgie post=”…”] shortcode.
nginx users: the automatic deny rule is an Apache .htaccess file. On nginx,
add the equivalent location block shown on the plugin’s Diagnostics screen,
otherwise your imported files stay publicly reachable.
FAQ
-
Does this connect to Instagram?
-
No. It reads the export ZIP you download from Instagram yourself. It never logs
in, scrapes, or syncs. Your archive is as current as your most recent export. -
Is my imported media private?
-
Yes, by default. Nostalgie stores media in its own uploads folder and writes a
web-server rule denying direct access to it. Files are served only through a
permission-checked endpoint, and only for the pages where you’ve placed them.
Media you have not put on a page is not reachable from the web at all. -
Can I run the import more than once?
-
Yes, that’s the intended workflow. Already-imported posts are detected and
skipped, so re-running with a newer export only adds what’s new. Changes you’ve
made afterwards are preserved. -
Which export format do I need?
-
JSON, not HTML. When you request your download from Instagram, choose JSON
as the format. Pick the date range and media quality you want, and Nostalgie
reads whatever the ZIP contains. -
Do I need ffmpeg?
-
No. If your host has ffmpeg, Nostalgie extracts a cover frame for each video.
Without it, videos import normally and simply show the standard media icon. -
What does the AI integration actually do?
-
It publishes a single read-only lookup that answers “which imported post is
this?” It searches your captions, hashtags and tagged place names, returning
the post’s id plus a ready-to-paste block. It sends nothing anywhere and needs no
API key. The assistant is whatever you’ve connected to your own site. It requires
WordPress 6.9 or newer and is simply absent on older versions. -
Does it work with a page cache?
-
Media URLs are time-limited, so a full-page cache can serve an expired one and
the media will fail to load until the cache refreshes. Exclude pages containing
Nostalgie media from full-page caching.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Nostalgie” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Nostalgie” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.4.5
- Fix: media set to a fixed size keeps that size inside a carousel.
- Change: the admin notices and info popovers are written in plain English.
1.3.1
- Fix: the “ffmpeg is not installed” notice under the thumbnail-fill button sits on its own line.
1.3.0
- Security: guard plugin files against direct access.
- New: a site-wide setting to disallow embedding your posts on other sites.
- New: video posters are generated in the browser on hosts without ffmpeg installed.
- Fix: the media block carousel’s previous and next buttons now move reliably between items.
1.1.1
- New: the media block’s carousel has previous and next buttons for moving between items, and its scrollbar is hidden.
- Fix: creating or updating the database tables no longer logs a database error about a text column’s default value.
1.1.0
- New: search now ranks results by relevance and finds a post by its tagged place name.
- New: limit an import to a range of months, using the date filter in the import options.
- New: the “wp nostalgie set-owner” command assigns an imported account to a WordPress user.
- Change: imported media is now organized into a per-account subfolder.
- Hardening: stronger input sanitizing and output escaping throughout.
1.0.2
- Fix: in the free edition, the block’s carousel toggle is now hidden
rather than shown disabled. - Passes the official WordPress Plugin Check tool with no warnings.