Instagram Stories are ephemeral pieces of content that get deleted from your profile after 24 hours. However, there’s a way to retain them through Highlights. In this post we explain what Highlights are and how you can add them on your profile.
Also read:How to Use “Add Yours” Stickers in Instagram Stories
What Are Instagram Highlights?
Highlights is a feature in Instagram that lets you group the Stories you’ve shared in the past and features them on your profile. You can find the Highlights section just underneath the bio section.
Even as Stories usually encompass less polished material compared to posts, you may still be proud of some of the Stories you’ve posted and would enjoy seeing them on your profile. This is where Highlights steps in.
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How to Add Highlights to Your Profile
Adding Highlights to your profile is very easy, provided you have a library of past Stories to fall back on. This entails that you have the Stories Archive feature enabled. The option is usually on by default in your mobile app, but you can check to make sure that’s the case by following these steps.
- From your profile page, tap on the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner of the display.
- Select “Settings” from the menu that appears from the bottom.
- Go to “Privacy.”
- Select “Story.”
- Scroll down until you find the “Saving” section. The “Save Story to Archive” option should be enabled. Alternatively, you may opt to turn “Save Story to Gallery” on, but that’s not required to start creating Highlights.
Now that you’ve ensured that Archiving is on, you can go ahead and start creating Highlights.
Also read:How to Add Links to Your Instagram Stories
How to Create a Highlight
- Open your profile in the Instagram app.
- Underneath your profile information you should see the “Story Highlights” option. If you haven’t added any until now, you’ll need to tap on the downward arrow to view the hidden menu.
- Tap on “New” to add your very first group of Highlights.
- Select the Stories you want to group under a Highlight, then press “Next.”
- On the next screen, you’ll have to type in a name to describe that group of Stories.
- You’ll also notice the option to “Edit cover,” which will be the image that will be shown in the Highlight bubble displayed on your profile. You can use one of the Stories you’ve selected for this Highlight group or upload another one from your camera roll.
- Press “Done.”
The Highlight has now been added to your profile. The full collection of Stories will be visible once you press on the specific bubble underneath your profile information.
It’s worth noting that you can create Reels directly from your Highlights panel. Once a Highlight has been created, press on the respective bubble that shows up on your profile.
Tap “Create” at the bottom. You will be able to shoot a new Reel or use any older clips you have saved to your camera roll, but the results won’t be added to your Highlights. Instead, they will be posted to your Profile, as usual.
Also read:Use Instagram Collab to Create a Collaborative Post or Reel
How to Add a Current Story to Highlights
If you have a Story that is currently running and wish to add it to a Highlight group, you can do so without having to revert back to your Profile.
- Open the Story you want to add to your Highlights.
- Tap on the “Highlights” button at the bottom.
- Select the group of Highlights you want to add the Story to. You can even create a new Highlight from scratch from this menu.
That’s it! The Story has been added to the targeted group.
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How to Add More Stories to Highlights
Suppose you forgot to add a few Stories to one of your Highlights, or you had a recent Story running that perfectly fits one of the categories of your Highlights. Not to worry, as you can easily add it to your profile.
- Tap the Highlight you want to add more content to.
- Tap on the three dots in the lower-right corner of the display.
- Select “Edit Highlight.”
- Tap on “Stories.”
- Select the Stories you wish to add.
- Tap “Done.”
The new Stories will be added to that specific Highlight.
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How to Delete Highlights from Your Profile
If you want to remove a Highlight from your profile, that’s totally OK. You can do that very easily.
- Locate the Highlight you want to delete from your Instagram profile.
- Long-press on it until a list of options shows up from the bottom.
- Select “Delete Highlight,” and that specific collection of Stories will disappear from your profile.
- Alternatively, you can remove specific Stories from the Highlight album. To do so, press on the Highlight bubble and find the Story you wish to remove.
- Tap on the three dots in the lower-right corner.
- Press on the “Remove from Highlight” option at the top.
- The Story will be removed from the group.
While you can’t create new Highlights from your PC or add any new Stories to the groups you’ve created, you can delete individual Stories from a Highlight.
All you have to do is click on the Highlight, then select the three dots in the upper-right corner and select “Delete.”
Also read:How to Rearrange Photos in an Instagram Carousel
How to Customize Highlight Covers
Instagram Highlights is a great tool that allows you to organize your content based on topics and categories, then places it at the forefront of your profile. If you’re a brand, using this feature can be even more crucial, as it enables you to expand your interactions with your customer base. With this in mind, you can use Highlights to do a number of things:
- Share additional information about your brand
- Share tips and tricks
- Promote deals
- Show off customer testimonials and reviews
- Publish Q&A or polls
By default, Instagram picks one of the photos included in Highlights to be the group’s cover image. If, however, you want to go for a more polished or artsy look, you should know that you can find and download unique Highlight cover templates online. Below we’ve listed three tools that allow you to download such templates for free:
- Canva – Canva is a website that puts a pretty large library of Highlights cover templates at your disposal. You can even edit these designs if you find elements that you don’t like, or if you think you can enhance them somehow. All you have to do to get access to the content is log in with an account (Gmail/Facebook).
- VistaCreate – This is another website that offers access to many unique cover templates for Highlights. There’s also the option to customize the creations already available so that you can add your own touch. Once again you’ll have to log in with an account.
- Highlight Cover Maker – This mobile app offers easy access to a wide selection of templates, not only for Instagram Highlights. Users can download them as they are or quickly edit them.
Need Some Inspiration?
If you don’t know where to start when it comes to setting up your Highlights, all you need to do is look around you for some inspiration. There are countless accounts doing Highlights right, and for the most part, they seem to match their Highlight covers with the general feel and look of the profile. Here are a couple of examples of profiles that impressed us. As you can see, they range from simple to the more complex.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How many Highlights can you add to your Instagram profile?
Instagram hasn’t imposed any limits, so in theory, you can add as many as you want. There’s a limit, however, to how many Stories you can include in a single Highlight: 100.
2. Can I see who viewed by Highlights, just like Stories?
If you have a Story that is currently running and have included it in a Highlight, you’ll be able to see who has viewed it so far. After 24 hours, this information will no longer be available. When it comes to older Highlights, it’s not possible to see who has viewed them.
3. Do your Highlights disappear after 24 hours in a similar fashion as Stories?
No, you can keep them for as long as you like on your profile. If you’d like to get rid of them, you’ll have to manually delete them.
Now that you know how to keep Instagram Stories around for longer, maybe you’ll be more inclined to put more effort into creating your next ones. If that’s the case, then you should check out our list of the best apps for creating unique Instagram Stories. Additionally, knowing how to download Instagram Stories and Highlights may also come in handy.
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