Instagram serves as the go-to social media platform for Millions of users worldwide. Whether you are a business or an individual, the amazing features of Instagram urge you to come over and over again.
One of these standout features is Instagram Highlights. It allows you to save your temporary stories in your feed forever.
If you don’t know how this Instagram Highlight works and how you can effectively manage it, then keep reading. In this blog, you will learn everything about Highlights, its features, and best practices. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What Are Instagram Highlights?
Instagram Highlights allows you to make a collection of your chosen Stories and feature them on your profile forever. As you might know, Stories disappear after 24 hours. But if you want to keep your stories alive on your feed just like your posts, Highlights got you covered.
Highlights are present under your bio and above your photos feed in a circular icon. This way, whoever visits your profile for posts can easily access your Highlights stories, too.
Features of Instagram Highlights
- Customization: One of the interesting features of Highlights is that it allows you to customize each collection with its own title and image.
- Permanent Display: The Highlights stay on your profile as long as you don’t remove them manually.
- Engagement: Another amazing fact that you don’t know about Highlights is that it keeps the users busy on your profile and increases your watch time.
Why Archive Instagram Highlights?
Now, if you want to archive your highlights, you can do that too easily. There are various reasons that might urge you one day to archive your full highlights or some of your stories. Let’s take a look at some possible reasons to archive your Highlights.
1. Profile Organization
Highlights features allow you to add multiple highlights to your profile. However, with time, some highlights may not match or align with the theme or message of your brand. So you might wanna remove them from your feed. In this case, instead of permanently deleting them, archiving helps you save them in a safe place.
2. Content Preservation
The archiving option also helps you store your Highlights safely as a secured backup. This way, if you ever want to see them or add them in Highlight again, you can do that easily.
3. Aesthetic Maintenance
Archiving your irrelevant and old Highlights helps you create a uniform and aesthetic look for your profile. Especially if you are an influencer or a brand, you need to keep a clean profile look.
4. Performance Monitoring
Regular highlight management or archiving helps you understand which content of your highlights gets more responses from the audience. This helps you make a better contempt strategy in the future.
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Preparing to Archive Your Highlights
If you ever plan to archive your Instagram Highlights, be sure to perform some precautionary steps to protect your data from disappearing.
1. Update Instagram App
Check the latest update of your Instagram app. If it does not already have the latest version, update it. The new features and improvements make your archiving process more smooth.
2. Backup Important Content
Even though your content will remain saved as a backup in the archive folder. But for better security, make sure to store your highlights and their content in an external storage space like a cloud or device.
3. Review Your Highlights
Before archiving the Highlight completely, review each highlight. See which one you wanna keep, archive, and delete. This ensures a clutter-free Highlight management process.
Step-by-Step Guide to Archiving Highlights on Instagram
Now, move on to our best practices to archive your Instagram Highlights.
Accessing Your Profile
- Open the Instagram App: Open your Instagram app and log in to your account.
- Go to Your Profile: Now, go to your profile.
Navigating to Highlights
- Locate Highlights Section: When you open the profiel, you will see circular icons under your bio.
- Identify the Highlight to Archive: Go through each Highlight and see which one you want to archive.
Selecting the Highlight to Archive
- Press and Hold: Long press on the highlight you want to archive.
- Options Menu: When you tap and hold the highlight, various options will appear.
Archiving the Highlight
- Select ‘Archive Highlight’: Among those various options, select ‘Archive Highlight’ to archive your Story Highlight.
- Confirm Action: When you click on the archiving option, a prompt appears to ask for confirmation. Confirm it.
- Highlight Removed from Profile: The Highlight will be archived and will not be visible in your profile any longer.
Image Source:
about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducing-stories-highlights-and-stories-archive
Managing Archived Highlights
Archiving your Instagram Highlights is one of many options. If you want to learn how to access, delete, and restore them from your archives, the following section is for you.
Accessing Archived Highlights
- Go to Your Profile: Open Instagram and log in to your account.
- Open Menu: Go to your profile and click the three lines at the very top right side of your profile.
- Select ‘Archive’: A dropdown menu bar appears; choose the ‘Archive’ option.
- View Archived Highlights: In Archive, there are two options: Posts and Stories archive. Go to the story archive to see the highlights.
Restoring Archived Highlights
If you ever want to display your Highlight back to your profile, then follow these steps:
- Access Archived Highlights: Go to your archive tab and follow the above steps.
- Select the Highlight: Choose the Highlight you want to restore.
- Restore Option: Click on your Highlight, and you will see an option similar to ‘Add to Highlights.’
- Confirm Restoration: Confirm your restoration through the prompt, and your Highlight starts appearing on your profile.
Deleting Archived Highlights
If you want to delete your Highlight permanently:
- Access Archived Highlights: Go to your Archive option from the dropdown bar.
- Select the Highlight: Find the Highlight that you wish to delete permanently.
- Delete Option: The options will appear; choose ‘Delete Highlight.’
- Confirm Deletion: Follow the confirmation prompt to proceed with the deletion.
Caution: Remember that once you delete your Highlight, it can’t be restored.
Best Practices for Archiving Highlights
Following are some best practices to improve your management of Instagram Archive.
1. Regular Maintenance
Occasionally visit your profile, especially to review your Highlights. Archive the Highlights that you no longer need. Delete the ones that you won’t be able to need in the future. Restore the ones you think align with your current content theme.
2. Categorize Thoughtfully
Always label your Highlights with a thoughtful name that particularly represents the content in the Stories. For instance, keep all your travel Stories in one Highlight and name them ‘Travel.’
3. Use Relevant Cover Images
Add relevant cover images in your Highlight that match the Highlight content. For more aesthetic appeal, ensure each cover also shares the same theme as your profile.
4. Monitor Performance
Instagram analytic tools like Insights tell you to monitor your Highlights performance. Once you know which Highlights is gaining more views and engagement, you can make better content creation later.
5. Backup Important Content
Always keep your important content stored in an external storage folder, such as on your device or in your cloud system. An external backup is a wise choice. Even if somehow your content or highlights are removed from Instagram, you may always access them through your external source.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
You easily manage and archive your Instagram Highlights with just a few steps. However, if you still face some issues while archiving your Highlights, try the following solutions.
1. Highlight Not Archiving Properly
- Solution: Always check your internet connection and see whether it has a stable connection or not. If you are still not able to archive your Highlights, check for updates or reinstall your app.
2. Cannot Access Archive
- Solution: There might be many reasons for not accessing the archive. One, if you may have restricted your account. Second, when your internet connection is not stable. Third, if you have not an updated version of the app
3. Restored Highlight Not Appearing
- Solution: If you see that your restored Highlights do not appear in the profile, go through each step again and see you might have missed something. If you still encounter the same issue, then contact the support team of Instagram.
4. Deleted Highlight Reappears
- Solution: Sometimes, your deleted Highlights still appear in your profile. For this, clear your app cache. Log-in to your account again. Or uninstall the app and install it again. If the issue still remains, contact the Instagram support team.
Conclusion
Highlights is one of the most incredible features of Instagram. It allows you to maintain and organize your profile in an aesthetic way. Now, you don’t have to worry about your Stories disappearing after every 24 hours. Because, you can store them in Highlights just above your profile like your posts.
However, you may sometimes want to archive your Highlights. There might be many reasons like you may no longer need those Stories anymore or they may not match your brand aesthetics.
Whatever the reason may be, if you want to keep your profile uniform and pleasing, make sure to regularly monitor your Highlights. Regular maintenance of your Highlight by adding, deleting, restoring, or achieving them helps you maintain an elegant profile look.
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SEO Specialist & Copywriter | 5 Years of Experience in the Tech World | Blog Contributor at AutoLikesIG | Portfolio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iqra-saeed-content-writer/
