How-To

Instagram Highlights: How to Create, Edit and Delete

Updated 10 min read
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Instagram highlights keep your stories on your profile after the usual 24 hours. Each highlight is a named set of stories you’ve shared, shown as a circle below your bio, and it stays until you remove it. Anyone you’ve allowed to see your stories can see your highlights too.

Highlights belong to the Stories part of our complete guide to Instagram’s features. Steps for iPhone, Android and the web follow, along with the archive setting that decides which old stories you can still add.

Table of Contents

What are Instagram highlights?

A highlight is a set of your past stories pinned to your profile, with its own cover and name. When Instagram launched highlights in December 2017, it called them “a new section on your profile below your bio”: you choose stories from your archive, select a cover, give the highlight a name, and it appears as a circle that plays as a stand-alone story when someone taps it. Checked against About Instagram: Introducing Stories Highlights & Stories Archive (5 December 2017)

Instagram’s current help adds the two rules that matter day to day:

One way to plan them: treat highlights as a standing menu for the things people keep asking about, such as prices, FAQs or how to order. Our Instagram story ideas include a list of stories worth saving as highlights.

How to create a highlight on Instagram

Go to your profile, tap New (or Story highlight), pick the stories, then choose a cover and a name. The order differs a little by device: on a phone you pick the stories first, while on the web you name the highlight first.

On iPhone:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Tap New. If you don't see New, tap Story highlight.
  3. Tap to select the story or stories you want to add to the highlight, then tap Next in the top right.
  4. Tap Edit cover to choose a cover photo and enter a name for your highlight, then tap Add in the top right.

On Android:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Tap New in the top right. If you don't see New, tap Story highlight.
  3. Tap to select the story or stories you want to add to the highlight, then tap Next in the top right.
  4. Tap Edit cover to choose a cover photo and enter a name for your highlight, then tap Done in the top right.

On the web:

  1. Click your profile picture on the left to go to your profile.
  2. Click New. If you don't see New, click Story highlight.
  3. Enter a highlight name for your highlight, then click Next.
  4. Click to select the story or stories you want to add to highlights, then click Next.
  5. Choose a cover photo and click Done.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Add a story to your Story Highlights.

Edit cover is where the cover comes from. Designing one that still reads at a small size is its own job, covered in our guide to Instagram highlight covers.

How to add a story to an existing highlight

Open your current story from your profile picture, tap Highlight on Android (More, then Highlight on iPhone), and pick the highlight. You can also add stories at any time by tapping and holding the highlight and choosing Edit highlight.

On iPhone:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Tap your profile picture in the top left to see your story.
  3. Tap More in the bottom right of the story or stories you want to add to your highlights.
  4. Tap Highlight and select the highlight you want to add your story to.

On Android:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Tap your profile picture in the top left to see your story.
  3. Tap Highlight in the bottom right of the story or stories you want to add to your highlights.
  4. Select the highlight you want to add your story to.

On the web:

  1. Click your profile picture on the left to go to your profile.
  2. Click the highlight you want to add to, then click More in the top right.
  3. Click Edit.
  4. If you want to update the name of your highlight, enter it in the text box. Click Next.
  5. Click Stories next to Selected and select the story or stories you want to add to your highlight.
  6. Click Next in the bottom, then click Done.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Add a story to your Story Highlights.

How to edit or delete a highlight

Tap and hold the highlight on your profile, then choose Edit Highlight or Delete Highlight. To drop one story, open the highlight, tap More on that story and choose Remove from Highlight. On the web, you open the highlight and use its Options menu instead.

On iPhone:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Below Edit Profile, find the Highlight you want to edit or delete, then tap and hold.
  3. Tap Delete Highlight, then tap Delete again, or tap Edit Highlight to add more photos or videos.
  4. To remove one story: open your story highlight, find the story, tap More in the bottom right, tap Remove from Highlight, then tap Remove.

On Android:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Below Edit Profile, find the Highlight you want to edit or delete, then tap and hold.
  3. Tap Delete Highlight, then tap Delete again, or tap Edit Highlight to add more photos or videos.
  4. To remove one story: open your story highlight, find the story, tap More in the bottom right, tap Remove from Highlight, then tap Remove Photo.

On the web:

  1. Click your profile picture on the left to go to your profile.
  2. Click the highlight you want to update, then click Options in the top right.
  3. Click Edit. Enter a new name if you want, then click Next.
  4. In Selected, click a story to unselect it and remove it from your highlight. Click Stories to see all your stories and click the ones you want to add.
  5. Click Next, then click Done.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Edit or delete a highlight on Instagram.

One thing you won’t find is a way to reorder highlights. Instagram’s article on editing and deleting highlights doesn’t document one, so we don’t publish steps for it.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Edit or delete a highlight on Instagram (no reorder steps).Not verified

Delete several highlights at once

The Instagram app can delete highlights in bulk from Your activity, with optional date filters. Instagram publishes the same steps for Android, and the web version of its article has no bulk-delete steps:

On iPhone:

  1. Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Tap Menu in the top right.
  3. Below How you use Instagram, tap Your activity.
  4. Below Content you shared, tap Highlights.
  5. Tap Select in the top right, then select the highlights you'd like to delete. To filter first, tap Newest to oldest to sort chronologically or All dates to filter by a date range.
  6. Tap Delete at the bottom. Tap Delete to confirm.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Edit or delete a highlight on Instagram.

Who can see your Instagram highlights?

The same people who can see your stories. Instagram’s note on it is a single line: “those you’ve allowed to see your story can also see your highlights.” Checked against Instagram Help Center: Add a story to your Story Highlights

Viewer lists are a different matter. Instagram documents who viewed a story, not who viewed a highlight. Swipe up on your own story to see its viewers, for up to 48 hours after you post it; after the first day, you open the story from your archive. Instagram’s highlight articles don’t mention a viewer list. Checked against Instagram Help Center: How to tell who's seen your Instagram story

Why can’t I add old stories to a highlight?

Check your Stories Archive setting first. Highlights are built from stories you’ve shared, and Instagram saves past stories to your archive. If the archive is off, Instagram says “any stories you share from that point on will be deleted after 24 hours”, so there’s nothing left to pick later. Checked against Instagram Help Center: Archive Instagram Stories or turn off Stories Archive

The setting is called Save story to archive. Instagram’s phone steps cover both archiving one story early and the setting itself, and Android uses the same steps:

On iPhone:

  1. Archive now: open the Instagram app, create and share your Story, tap Options on the Story you want to archive, then tap Archive.
  2. Archive setting: tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right, tap Menu in the top right, below How you use Instagram tap Your activity, tap Archived, tap Options in the top right, then tap Settings.
  3. Next to Save story to archive, use the toggle.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Archive Instagram Stories or turn off Stories Archive.

On the web, the setting sits under Archiving and downloading:

On the web:

  1. Click More in the bottom left, then click Settings.
  2. Click Archiving and downloading under Your app and media.
  3. Use the toggle next to Save story to archive.

Checked against Instagram Help Center: Archive Instagram Stories or turn off Stories Archive.

Turning the archive back on saves stories from then on; Instagram describes no way to recover stories deleted while it was off. If you keep it off, add a story to a highlight within its 24 hours, straight from the story. Two more things to know:

  • Archived public stories and Meta AI. Instagram says stories shared publicly, including those in your archive, “will be used to improve AI at Meta unless you delete them from your archive or change your account to private.” Checked against Instagram Help Center: How long Instagram stories remain visible
  • App problems. If the stories are in your archive but won’t add, Instagram’s general fixes apply: update the app, restart your phone and try both Wi-Fi and mobile data. Checked against Instagram Help Center: Troubleshooting

Planning stories ahead so they’re ready for a highlight? Here’s whether you can schedule Instagram Stories.

Plan your next Instagram feed post in Outfeed AI

FAQ

Do Instagram highlights expire?

No. Instagram says stories you add as highlights remain visible as highlights until you remove them, even after the original story has disappeared. On its own, a story disappears from Feed, your profile and Direct after 24 hours. Anyone you’ve allowed to see your stories can also see your highlights.

Can you see who views your Instagram highlights?

Instagram documents a viewer list for stories, not for highlights. Swipe up on your own story to see who has viewed it; the list is available for up to 48 hours after you post, so after the first day you open the story from your archive. Instagram’s highlight articles don’t mention a viewer list.

How many stories can you put in one Instagram highlight?

Instagram doesn’t say. Its help articles on creating and editing highlights give no limit on stories per highlight, and when it launched highlights in December 2017 it said you can have as many highlights as you’d like. Treat any exact limit quoted elsewhere as unconfirmed.

How do I add a highlight on Instagram without posting it to my story?

Instagram doesn’t document a way. Every route in its highlight help articles starts from stories you’ve already shared, and its launch post described choosing them from your Stories Archive. Share the story first, then add it to a highlight while it’s live, or pick it later when you create a highlight, as long as your archive kept it.

Can you reorder Instagram highlights?

Instagram’s Help Center doesn’t document a way to reorder highlights, so we don’t publish steps for one. Its highlight articles cover creating a highlight, adding and removing stories, renaming it on the web, and deleting one highlight or several at once.

instagram instagram highlights instagram stories profile