While Instagram stories are short-term content by default, sometimes we can’t get rid of them quickly enough — today’s fast-paced reality could make content obsolete or even embarrassing and/or inappropriate in a matter of hours. Fortunately, there is a way out, as long as you know how to delete an Instagram story. That’s exactly what we’re going to show you, so stick with us.
With half a million Instagrammers using stories on a daily basis, mistakes are bound to happen — posting the wrong story or worrying about it possibly offending someone — we’ve all been there. Luckily, you don’t need to sweat it for 24 hours, waiting for your Insta story’s expiration period to come.
So, let’s see how to delete an IG story before it does any (more) damage.
Voila! Your story has now been removed from your Instagram profile. If you, however, want to keep your story safe from a certain someone’s prying eyes, consider hiding your story on Instagram.
Note that stories you create are automatically saved in your archive. So if you want them gone from there too, here’s what you need to do:
Note that you can also turn your story archive off altogether by going to your Instagram privacy settings.
Story highlights are a good way to keep your favorite Instagram stories accessible, but sometimes you might want to delete them. To do so, simply go to your profile page and tap on the “Edit Profile” button. Under “Story Highlights,” you’ll see all of the story highlights you’ve created. Tap on the one you want to delete, then press the trashcan icon. Confirm your decision and you’re done.
If you’re having trouble in your efforts to remove an Instagram story, you could just be facing a glitch.
You can restart the app and clear the cache so that the previous actions get refreshed. If that doesn’t do the trick, double-check that you have the latest version of the Instagram app and of your smartphone’s software, for that matter.
If things are still not working, consider a good old restart of your device, which will hopefully remove the glitch. Finally, go ahead and look up news for Instagram outages, if there’s one in your area, you might need to just wait for it to pass before you are able to remove a story from Instagram.
Knowing how to delete old stories on Instagram gives you more control over what you share and ultimately, keeps your friends and followers engaged with better quality content.
No. If you delete an Instagram story before it is supposed to disappear on its own, it won’t stay in your archive either.
No, because there is no need to. Stories that you create and share on your Instagram profile are automatically saved in your archive.
If you delete stories on Instagram, they are gone forever. No one will be able to see it after you’ve deleted it. And if someone does repost it, they won’t be able to see it either.
There’s really no need to know how to delete an Instagram story after 24 hours have passed since it will simply disappear on its own. You can, however, delete it from your archive.
