What Story Highlights Are and Why You'd Use Them

Story Highlights are permanent collections of your Instagram Stories that sit on your profile below your bio, even after the Stories themselves disappear after 24 hours. Instead of your Stories vanishing, you can pin them to your profile under custom category names — "Travel," "Product Launches," "Behind the Scenes," or anything else you choose.

Highlights let visitors to your profile see your best or most important Stories without scrolling through your feed. Businesses use them to showcase products or customer testimonials. Creators use them to organize content by topic. Personal accounts use them to keep memories visible. The Stories you add to Highlights stay there until you remove them, regardless of how old they are.

Key Takeaways

  • You create a Highlight by opening a Story you've already posted, tapping the bookmark icon, and choosing "Add to Highlights" — then naming the category.
  • You can add Stories that are still live (less than 24 hours old) or Stories that have already expired, as long as you saved them to your archive.
  • Each Highlight appears as a circle with a custom cover image on your profile, and you can reorder them by holding and dragging.
  • You can edit, delete, or add more Stories to an existing Highlight at any time without affecting the original Stories.

How to Create Your First Highlight from a Live Story

Open Instagram and go to your own profile. Tap the Stories section at the top — you'll see your most recent Stories displayed. Find the Story you want to save and tap it to open it in full screen.

Look for the bookmark icon (it looks like a ribbon or flag) at the bottom of the screen. Tap it. A menu will appear asking whether you want to "Add to Highlights." Tap that option. Instagram will then ask you to name the Highlight — type a name like "Products," "Events," or "Team" depending on what the Story shows. Tap "Add" and the Story is now pinned to your profile under that Highlight name.

The Highlight appears as a circle on your profile with a preview image from the Story inside it. The original Story will still disappear after 24 hours, but the version in your Highlight stays permanently.

Adding Stories That Have Already Expired

You can add Stories to Highlights even after they've disappeared from your profile, but only if you saved them to your archive when they were live. When you post a Story, Instagram gives you the option to save it to your archive automatically — this is on by default, but you can turn it off in Settings if you choose.

To add an archived Story to a Highlight, open your profile and tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top right. Select "Archive," then "Stories Archive." Find the Story you want and tap it. Tap the bookmark icon and choose "Add to Highlights," then name the Highlight or add it to an existing one.

This is useful if you want to create a Highlight weeks or months after posting the original Story, or if you want to reorganize old content into new categories.

Customizing Highlight Covers and Names

Each Highlight displays as a circle on your profile with a cover image — by default, this is a frame from the first Story in that Highlight. You can change it to any image from any of the Stories in that Highlight, or upload a custom image instead.

To change a Highlight cover, hold down on the Highlight circle until a menu appears. Tap "Edit Highlight." You'll see options to change the cover image. Tap "Change Cover" and choose either a frame from one of the Stories in the Highlight, or tap "Upload Photo" to use a custom image from your phone. You can also rename the Highlight here by tapping the name field at the top.

Custom covers are helpful if you want a consistent visual style across your Highlights, or if you want to use a branded image or icon instead of a screenshot from a Story.

Managing Multiple Stories in One Highlight

A single Highlight can hold many Stories. When someone taps a Highlight circle on your profile, they see all the Stories in that Highlight stacked together, and they can swipe through them one by one.

To add more Stories to an existing Highlight, open any Story (live or archived) and tap the bookmark icon. Instead of creating a new Highlight, choose the name of an existing Highlight from the list that appears. The Story is added to the end of that Highlight's stack.

To remove a Story from a Highlight, open the Highlight on your profile, tap and hold on the Story you want to remove, and select "Remove from Highlight." The original Story is not deleted — it just stops appearing in that Highlight.

Reordering Highlights on Your Profile

Highlights appear on your profile in the order you created them, but you can rearrange them. Hold down on any Highlight circle until it lifts slightly, then drag it left or right to a new position. Release it when it's where you want it.

This is useful if you want your most important or most-viewed Highlights to appear first, or if you want to organize them by topic or season. You can rearrange them as often as you like without affecting the Stories inside them.

Deleting Highlights You No Longer Need

To delete an entire Highlight, hold down on the Highlight circle until a menu appears. Tap "Delete Highlight." Confirm when Instagram asks you to. The Highlight disappears from your profile, but the original Stories are not deleted — they remain in your archive if you saved them.

Deleting a Highlight is permanent and cannot be undone, so make sure you don't need it before you remove it. If you only want to remove one Story from a Highlight instead of deleting the whole thing, open the Highlight, tap and hold the Story, and choose "Remove from Highlight."

Frequently Asked Questions

Can people see my Highlights if my account is private?

Only people who follow you or have been approved to follow you can see your Highlights. If your account is public, anyone can see them. You can change your privacy settings in Settings > Privacy > Account Privacy.

Do the Stories in my Highlights count toward my Story views?

No. Views on Stories in Highlights are counted separately from views on live Stories. Instagram tracks them differently, so a Story with 100 live views might have 50 additional views from people tapping the Highlight later.

Can I add Stories from other people to my Highlights?

No. You can only add your own Stories to Highlights. You cannot save other people's Stories to your own Highlights, though you can save them to your archive or share them to your own Story.

What happens if I delete the original Story — does it disappear from the Highlight too?

No. Once a Story is added to a Highlight, it stays in the Highlight even if you delete the original Story from your archive. The Highlight version is independent.

Can I add the same Story to multiple Highlights?

Yes. A single Story can appear in as many Highlights as you want. This is useful if a Story fits multiple categories — for example, a photo of a product launch could go in both "Products" and "Events" Highlights.