How to Add Someone Else's Story to Your Story

Sharing someone else's content to your own story is one of social media's most useful features — but it works differently depending on which platform you're using, what the original poster's privacy settings are, and what you're actually trying to do with the reshare. Here's a clear breakdown of how it works across the major platforms.

What Does "Adding Someone's Story to Your Story" Actually Mean?

When you reshare another person's story to your own, your followers see their content appear as a repost within your story — usually with the original creator's username and sometimes their profile picture attached. It's not a copy; it's a link back to the original post, which means the original creator typically gets credit and can see that you shared it.

This is different from screenshotting and re-uploading, which strips attribution and, depending on the platform, may violate community guidelines or copyright norms.

How It Works on Instagram

Instagram has the most widely used story resharing system. If someone tags you in their story, you'll receive a notification in your DMs with the option to "Add This to Your Story." Tapping that lets you place their story content as a sticker within your own story, which you can resize and reposition before posting.

If they don't tag you, the reshare option depends entirely on their account settings. For public accounts, you can tap the paper airplane icon beneath a feed post and select "Add post to your story" — but this only works for feed posts, not active stories from other users.

Resharing another user's active story directly (without being tagged) is generally not possible on Instagram unless that person has granted permission through their privacy settings or you have a third-party workaround — which carries its own risks.

Key variables on Instagram:

• Public vs. private accounts — private accounts' content cannot be reshared
• Whether you were tagged — this is the primary trigger for story reshares
• The original poster's resharing settings — users can disable the ability for others to reshare their posts

How It Works on Facebook

Facebook Stories follows a similar logic. If someone tags you in their story or shares a post that's set to Public, you may see an option to share it to your own story. The interface typically shows a "Share to Story" button when viewing compatible content.

Facebook's resharing behavior is heavily governed by audience settings. A story set to "Friends" rather than "Public" usually can't be reshared beyond that circle. The platform also lets users turn off resharing for their posts entirely, so even public content isn't always shareable.

How It Works on Snapchat

Snapchat operates differently. Snaps sent to public Stories by creators who have enabled it can sometimes be reposted using the Repost button (a feature Snapchat has rolled out gradually). For regular user stories, resharing is far more restricted — Snapchat's original design philosophy prioritized ephemeral, private content, and that foundation still limits how openly content can be redistributed.

If a public creator or brand has enabled reposts, you'll see a dedicated repost option. Otherwise, there's no native way to add a friend's Snap story to your own.

How It Works on TikTok

TikTok Stories (where available) are relatively limited in resharing functionality compared to feed videos. TikTok's main reshare ecosystem is built around feed videos, where the Stitch and Duet features let you incorporate someone else's video content into your own post — though these create new videos rather than story reposts.

For TikTok Stories specifically, native resharing to your own story isn't a consistent, built-in feature across all regions and account types. TikTok's feature rollout varies significantly by region and account status.

The Variables That Determine What's Possible 📱

A Note on Third-Party Apps and Workarounds

There are third-party apps and screen recording methods that claim to let you reshare any story. These come with real downsides: they often strip attribution from the original creator, they may violate a platform's Terms of Service, and some require you to log in with your credentials — a significant security risk. Using them can result in account warnings or bans, and the content quality is often degraded.

The cleaner path is always to use the platform's native reshare tools, even if that means asking the original creator to tag you first.

What Affects Your Experience Most

The gap between "I want to reshare this story" and "I successfully reshared this story" almost always comes down to three things: which platform you're on, your relationship to the original poster (tagged vs. not tagged, following vs. follower), and how the original creator has configured their account settings. Two people trying to do the exact same thing on the same app can hit completely different outcomes based on these variables. 🔍

Your own setup — the platform you primarily use, whether you're dealing with public or private accounts, and what the original creator has enabled — is ultimately what determines which of these paths are actually open to you.