Instagram is the app I spend the most time on. It’s my go-to doomscrolling app during breaks and the one I use before I fall asleep. So, of course, over the past eight years, my Instagram stash has accumulated hundreds of movies, TV shows, and anime titles that I want to watch “one day.” When I realized my save count was approaching 1000, I decided it was time to start reducing my backlog; otherwise, I’ll never watch the titles I religiously saved for eight years. The problem was two-fold: Manually traversing the post-906 long storage bin was terrifyingly long, and contained books, manga, Wallpaper engine wallpapersand indie game recommendations mixed together. Separating movies, shows and anime from others in a smart format meant I needed help. So I handed it all over to Claude and asked him to create a clean, sortable watchlist that I could actually use. When I saw the results, I realized that I should have done this years ago.
Claude couldn’t delete my Instagram posts so I had to do some work
Manual Instagram export only took a few minutes
It would be amazing if I could connect Claude directly to my Instagram account with one click. But since my Instagram saves are private, Claude couldn’t unbox them. While I could write a Python script or use a third-party platform via API connectors to do this, I decided that my use case didn’t need either of those. Fortunately, Meta provides a data export option in Instagram settings that allows you to download almost all of your data. I selected “Saved” to get only my saved posts in the HTML file. The compressed download file also contained separate “saved collections” and “saved music” files, which might be very useful for some people. I only needed the “saved posts” HTML, which I converted to a CSV file using an online converter, so I could provide Claude with a more readable dump. After that, it’s time to apply quickly.
I asked Claude to turn the chaotic savings dump into a proper watchlist
It took a few tries, but he finally got there
The the challenge didn’t have to be complicated — I just needed Chloe to save 906 Instagrams I couldn’t even try. The functionality I was looking for was to analyze hundreds of posts in minutes and condense them into a clean and stylish watchlist sorted by genre, year, type and time viewed. So this is what I asked Claude when sharing the CSV file I created earlier. The first pass returned only 85 titles, which was clearly off the mark. So I asked Claude to do the research again, after which he returned about 200 titles, which was better, but still clearly wrong. Even after the upgrade, I still had a few hundred more captions in my Instagram memory. After several passes, Claude managed to go from 200 to 320 and finally to 491, after which further scans did not add anything to the number.
Another problem I ran into was that Claude displayed the entire list in one table in one link. He continued to hit JavaScript’s rendering limits, truncating the list at about 120 titles. After several attempts, he decided to use it window.storageCloud’s memory API, which enables persistent memory for widgets and web applications. This should have fixed the rendering limits, but Claude still kept hitting the wall after rendering about 120 titles. So I finally decided to create an HTML file that would display all 491 titles without any dependencies, work completely offline, and allow me all the filter and sorting options I needed.
My Instagram stash is now a continuous watch list that I can access anywhere
It is now my only source of truth
My 8-year Instagram save bin was now an easy-to-use, portable, HTML watchlist of movies, shows, and anime sorted by genre, year, and viewing time. Claude automatically added another column, a link to a Google search for the “Where to Watch” title, and helped me with the relevant streaming apps. I downloaded the watch list to my phone and shared it with my partner, so we had a recommendations app ready to go when we ran out of material to watch. I use this offline web app to get through my backlog in an organized way. I no longer need to waste time finalizing what to watch. My personally curated Instagram saves can now be seen in a simple but useful watchlist, so I don’t have to manually go through my saved posts anymore.
Having this watch list has allowed me to watch the titles I’ve always wanted to see instead of having to fire up a newly released title on Netflix, Prime Video, or Apple TV+. My background has gone from a growing list to something I now have a real chance of getting through. I’ll also add another feature to mark the title as “watched” when I’m done and show a direct link to the streaming app (if available) instead of a simple Google search link. There are many ways to create a better watchlist/consistent curation with Claude, but my current watchlist works for now. You can get more advanced results by asking Claude to recommend three titles based on your mood or available time. Whenever you come across a new title, you can add it to the backlog. You can even do it Ask Claude to recommend titles that can’t be left behind generally based on what you have already shared with him.
My 8 years of hard work is finally paying off
For eight long years, I’ve memorized almost every movie, show, and anime title in my Instagram memory. Over time, this save dump became too large to be useful because I could never go through it all manually. Claude helped me turn this raw watch list into an organized list that I could interact with. I can apply filters and sort titles based on multiple criteria, getting more out of my personalized watchlist than ever before.
