CNET: Fed Up With Instagram? How to Move Your Photos to Pixelfed

For anyone wondering

Before we begin, though, you should know about a few limitations. Pixelfed is a decentralized network of community servers, like the Mastodon social network, and the settings can vary. For instance, make sure the one where you have an account allows imports; the original Pixelfed.social currently has imports disabled and is not accepting new registrations because the influx of traffic is impacting performance. You can create an account on one of many other available Pixelfed servers.

or check out another instance, there are plenty of cute ones that have it enabled...