Instagram Stories Highlights and Stories Archive rolling out today

Two new changes are being introduced by Instagram today for Stories, and they are being called, Stories Highlights and Stories Archive, new ways to repurpose and hold on to older Stories.

Users usually end up losing their Stories, no matter how great it is, after 24 hours of uploading it, and some would like to leave it hanging around for longer but not re-upload the same post over and over. Well, Stories Highlights helps you accomplish that, without spamming your followers with the same picture or video again, instead giving users a new space to showcase their favourite Instagram Stories.

Stories Highlights can be viewed on your profile page, just under the bio, where you can add multiple Story highlights and name them accordingly. People who visit your profile can tap on them and see a whole new side of your personality and your favourite moments that couldn’t make the cut to permanent Instagram posts.

Here’s how you can create Stories Highlights.

“To create a highlight, tap the “New” circle at the far left. From there, you can choose any stories from your archive, select a cover for your highlight and give it a name. Once you’re done, your highlight will appear as a circle on your profile that plays as a stand-alone story when someone taps it. Highlights stay on your profile until you remove them, and you can have as many highlights as you’d like. To edit or remove a highlight, just tap and hold that highlight on your profile.” the Instagram blog post explains.

"This could make Stories appeal to older demographics whose friends might not be so addicted to Instagram that they open to watch Stories every single day. Highlights will surely be well utilized by brands who pour resources into shooting Stories, and now can create product or campaign specific collections." Josh Constine from TechCrunch writes.

Now, Instagram Stories Archive, another borrowal from an exclusive Snapchat feature, Memories.

Stories Archive is a space saver, which lets you save your favourite Stories on Instagram’s cloud, and not overburdening your phone with them. Stories Archive will automatically save all your Stories once they expire 24 hours later.

The Stories Archive will be in the same place as the Instagram Posts Archive, but will be available for view in two separate places. You can switch between the Stories Archive and the Posts Archive rather easily so there won’t be any confusion.

“In your Stories Archive, your stories will appear in a grid with the most recent stories at the bottom. The first story from each day will show a date indicator to help you navigate your archive as you scroll.” the Instagram blog post said further.

You can take a stroll down memory lane whenever you like, or re-share, upload as a permanent post or add it to your profile as a Highlight. The point is, you now have different ways to share your Stories, and not seem repetitive; and not use up all your phone memory.

If you’re conservative on the data front, and are blessed with infinite storage/disregard towards losing Stories, you can turn off Auto Save on Stories Archive. Also, obviously they are private and only you can see them.

These updates are available starting today to devices on Android and iOS as Instagram version 25.