The Web Accessibility team within the Office for Civil Rights & Title IX Education and Compliance has developed a bookmarklet that reveals alt text on Instagram. This tool can help social media managers to identify which images are missing alt text. It is University Communications' policy not to share content from other accounts that does not meet accessibility needs. We use this tool to ensure any Instagram posts we share meet this standard. We encourage units across campus to require alt text in all content they share as well.
Alt Text on Single Image Posts
When you run the bookmarklet, it will expose the alt text below the image on the profile page or when you click on it to open it in the dialog. User-written alt text will have white text on a green background. Autogenerated alt text will have white text on a brown/maroon background and will start with “(AUTOGENERATED)”.
Examples:
Alt Text on Multi-Image Posts
When you run the bookmarklet, it will expose the alt text of the first photo in the series or the post text. It is important to look for the multi-image icon at the top right of the image. To see the alt text for all the images, you need to click on the photos to open the dialog and cycle through them. The bookmarklet will only pull the alt text for two at a time, so you will have to re-run the bookmarklet to expose the alt text for images past the first two and so on in increments of two. For example, you will have to run the bookmarklet 3 times if you have 6 images.
Note: Reels within multi-image posts will not have any alt text.
Examples:
Alt Text in Reels Posts
When you run the bookmarklet, it will expose the post text below the reels. Instagram sets that as the alt text. It is important to check for the reel icon in the top right corner of the post. As of November 2023, there is not a way to set alt text for reels.
Examples: