Are you part of the vast Instagram community who loves capturing your daily moments and sharing them on Instagram Stories? Do you feel disappointed when they’re gone after 24 hours? Well, you’re in luck! Saving your Instagram stories is not only a possibility, but it’s incredibly easy.
Whether you want to keep a personal archive of memories, or share them on different platforms, here’s everything you need to know about preserving your Instagram Story memories.
Why Should You Save Your Instagram Stories?
First, let’s talk about why you’d want to save your Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories allow you to share the spontaneous and less polished side of your life, but sometimes those fleeing moments end up being ones you want to keep.
For example, maybe you posted a quick video of your friend’s wedding, a sunset or an on the spot joke. Whatever the reason is, sometimes Instagram Stories deserve more than a 24-hour lifespan.
Saving Instagram Stories
The good news is that there are several ways to save your Instagram Stories, from automatic to manually downloading them.
How to Automatically Save Instagram Stories
Sometimes you may decide you want to keep an Instagram story, but it’s too late. The 24 hours have passed and you can’t access it anymore. To avoid this happening again, You can change your settings to automatically save them.
- Go to Your Profile: Click on your profile picture in the bottom right corner to head to your profile page
- Go to Settings: Tap on the three horizontal lines in the top right corner to access the menu, and select Settings
- Find Privacy and Security: Scroll down until you find Privacy, and then click on Story Controls
- Turn on Save to Archive: Toggle on the “Save to Archive” feature to ensure that all your future stories are automatically saved. You’ll be able to find them in the Instagram Archive.
Save Stories Manually
If you want to be more selective about what you keep, or you forgot to turn on the auto-save function, don’t worry! You can still manually save an Instagram Story while it is still within the 24-hour posting period.
- View Your Active Story: For this saving method to work, the story needs to be active. Click on your profile photo bubble from the main page to see your story.
- Save Story Manually: While you’re viewing your story, you’ll see three dots at the bottom right. Tap on those, and select “Save” from the menu. You can choose to save the photo/video to your phone’s camera roll.
Downloading Stories After You Post Them
If you post multiple Instagram Stories and want to save all of them, Instagram makes it easy to download everything as a single video.
- Open Your Story: Head over to your Instagram profile and open your own story
- Download Your Story: At the bottom of the screen select the ‘More” option which should look like three dots. Click on it and select ‘Save Story’ to save the entire sequence of photos and videos from the last 24 hours. It will be saved as one continuous video.
Saving Instagram Stories to Highlights Page
Want your stories to be on display for longer than 24 hours? Add them to your highlights!
- Add a Highlight: Head to your profile page and click on the “+New” under “Story Highlights.” Select the stories you want to keep.
- Name Your Highlight: After you choose your stories, name your highlight and adjust the cover. Select “Add” and it will be on your profile page until you remove it.
Final Thoughts
The bottom line is that Instagram Stories are a fantastic way to share and save the magic of everyday moments. Whether you choose to have every story saved automatically, select certain memories, or showcase them on your Highlights, you have all the tools you need.
