How to Add Highlights on Instagram

Instagram stories are short photo and video posts that appear in full screen, slideshow format for up to 24 hours in the stories feed. If you want to keep a particular story visible for longer than that 24-period, you can add it as Instagram story Highlights to your profile until you decide to remove it.

What Are Highlights on Instagram?

Highlights are essentially stories you pin to the top of your Instagram profile for an indefinite period of time. Any story you post will appear in your followers' feeds for 24 hours, then automatically disappear. However, if you add a story to your Highlights, anyone who visits your profile will see it as a circular icon above your main feed, even after it disappears from their main stories feed.

Highlights don't have to contain just one story, and can be a collection of stories. You can add up to 100 photo or video stories to a single Highlight. There's also no limit to the number of Highlights you can add to your profile.

Until you manually remove a Highlight from your profile, it remains there indefinitely. Just like regular stories, you're able to see who's viewed your Highlights.

Any users you've allowed to view your stories can also view your Highlights, meaning if your Instagram profile isn't private, anyone can see your stories as well as your Highlights. To customize your story privacy settings, navigate to your profile, tap the menu icon in the right, tap Settings > Privacy > Story, then tap Hide Story From to select followers you don't want to see your stories.

Why Use Instagram Highlights?

Highlights are ideal for content you want to keep around longer than 24 hours, but don't fit the constraints of standard photo and video posts (such as the need to crop them). They're also ideal for casual content situations where you're not exactly looking to attract likes and comments.

Stories that capture memorable moments or mean something to you are perfect for Highlighting on your profile. Anyone who visits your profile will see your Highlights and can tap them to catch a glimpse of your favorite stories.

There are two main ways you can create a Highlight:

From your profile by accessing your story archive.
From your existing live stories (within 24 hours of it being posted).

You can view Highlights on profiles via Instagram.com, but you can't post them from the web. The following instructions will show you how to post Highlights via the Instagram app for iOS and Android. Screenshots are provided for the iOS version, but Android users can follow along with a near identical app.

How to Post an Instagram Highlight From Your Profile

You can easily post a Highlight from your Instagram profile. Once posted, the Highlight will appear on your profile.

On the Instagram app, tap the profile icon in the bottom menu.
Tap the Story Highlights label above your grid of posts.
Tap the plus sign (+) labeled "New."
A grid of your most recently archived stories will appear (along with the dates when they were posted). Tap the circle in the bottom of one or multiple stories to add a checkmark to those you want to include in a single Highlight.

Don't see any of your previously posted stories here? You might need to enable story archiving. To do this, tap the menu icon in the top right corner of your profile, then tap Settings > Privacy > Story. Under Saving, make sure Save to Archive is turned on so it appears blue.
Tap Next once you've selected the stories you want to add to a single Highlight.

Optionally, to customize your cover image, tap Edit Cover and name your Highlight by typing something into the field below the cover. If you don't rename it, its name will appear as "Highlights" by default.
Tap Add in the top right. It should appear on your profile.

How to Post an Instagram Highlight From Your Stories

You can add a story to your Highlights as you're posting a new story. This takes the extra step out of Highlighting the story after it's already been posted.

To start composing a new story, tap Your Story in the stories feed on your home tab, tap your profile photo on your profile, or swipe right from the home tab.
Tap the white button at the bottom to capture your story or the photo/video preview thumbnail in the bottom left to upload an existing photo or video.
On the preview of your story, tap the Highlight button in the bottom right.
Type in an optional name for your Highlight, then tap Add.
Tap View on Profile to see it on your profile or tap Done.

How to Edit or Remove an Instagram Highlight

Editing your story gives you the opportunity to change the cover photo to a custom one and add more stories as needed. Since Highlights remain on your profile indefinitely, you're going to want to know how to remove them when they're no longer relevant.

To edit an existing Highlight on your profile, tap the Highlight to view it, then tap the three dots labeled "More" in the bottom right corner.
Tap Edit Highlight.
Tap Edit Cover to select a new image from your device as a cover image, rename the Highlight in the Name field and tap Archive to add more stories from your archive.
Tap Done to update your Highlight.
When you're ready to remove the Highlight from your profile, tap the Highlight to view it, then tap the three dots labeled "More" in the bottom right corner.
Tap Remove from Highlight.
Tap Remove again to confirm it.