Well, they took their sweet-ass time, but Instagram has finally added a feature Snapchat have had for a while: the ability to archive your Stories. Previously, photos and videos you tok for your Insta story would vanish after a day, and if you forgot to save it you might have lost that incredible pic of your mate stacking it into the pool.
Starting today, Instagram will add your expired stories to the Archive, which previously existed as a kind of bin for all the posts you’d removed from your profile. If this sounds like something you definitely do not want, don’t worry – you can opt out.
So that brings them closer to feature parity with Snapchat, via another – ahem – “borrowed” feature. But it does come with something Snapchat doesn’t have: you’ll also have the ability to package your old Stories into something called Highlights. Highlights will appear above your other posts on your profile, and act like a kind of ‘best of’ your stories. So all those clips of you howling incomprehensibly into your phone while absolutely plastered on a Saturday night can be preserved, cinematically, forever.
This shows just how compelling Stories are as a feature – Highlights are literally above the regular ol’ pics on your profile now. It’s almost as if they’ve become the go-to way that people share content these days, and the regular curated photos you upload to your Instagram are taking a backseat.
The feature is rolling out globally today – you might already have it. If you want to learn more, head on over to the Instagram blog.
