2026

ig changed their DOM. old selectors broke. the seek bar stopped working.

so i looked at what else was out there. found 10+ related repos. one of them — the one i learned the most from — was 404. gone.

point is: you can rebuild anything better than what's already on github. code disappears. knowledge doesn't.

the old script (v1.0) had 4 fatal assumptions about ig's DOM:

video.closest('article')          // ig no longer wraps reels in <article>
svg[aria-label*="Save']           // ig changed the aria-labels on action buttons
no SPA navigation handling        // pushState/replaceState not intercepted
keydown listener per video        // memory leak — new listener every scan

v3.2.0 — rebuilt from scratch:

• → pointer events + setPointerCapture for seek bar (not click)
• → capture phase keyboard handler (beats ig's arrow key navigation)
• → shadow DOM traversal with bounded BFS (no recursion)
• → SPA hooks: pushState, replaceState, popstate
• → single document-level keydown (no memory leak)
• → stopPropagation on ALL event types in capture phase
• → pause during drag for smooth scrub (no HLS stutter)
• → duration display next to save button via aria-label selector
• → space bar to pause/play

nasa's jet propulsion lab wrote 10 rules for safety-critical code. I applied them to a userscript:

• 1. no recursion — iterative BFS for DOM traversal
• 2. fixed loop bounds — SCAN_MAX: 50
• 3. no alloc after init — minimal DOM creation
• 4. functions < 60 lines — all functions 3-43 lines
• 5. assertion density — validate all DOM queries
• 6. smallest scope — block-scoped variables
• 7. check returns — null checks on every querySelector
• 8. single-line config — CFG object at top
• 9. shallow deref — max 2 levels property access
• 10. no warnings — no unused vars, strict mode

github is full of broken repos. 404s. abandoned projects. scripts that worked 6 months ago and don't anymore.

but the knowledge in those repos? still there. if you read the code, understand the patterns, and rebuild — you can make something better.

one of the repos i credited learned from? 404. the aria-label selectors for save/remove buttons? i found them in that gist before it disappeared. now they're in my script.

code is temporary. understanding is permanent.

10 repos that informed this rebuild:

• → AngeloC98/instagram-reels-controls — pointer events + setPointerCapture
• → xNasuni/instagram-better-controls — video overlay detection
• → ackiejoe/reels-progress — progress bar for reels
• → cosmic-mirror/instagram-reel-slider — event propagation blocking
• → -Inet (Greasy Fork) — pointer events timeline
• → Uuygar/instagram-reels-controller — fixed-position overlay
• → eclemens/instagram-keyboard-shortcuts [404 — gone]
• → y252328/Instagram_Download_Button — SVG path matching
• → mathewsachin/Instagram Download Buttons — React Fiber scraping
• → Emree.el (Greasy Fork) — working progress bar

github repo →