How To View Old Instagram Stories
William StantonRead more January 2, 2021
Instagram Stories have become one of the most popular features of the social media platform, Like Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories only appear on your feed for 24 hours, or until the person who posted the Story deletes it.
However, unlike Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories dont actually disappear completely after 24 hours. While Instagram Stories do disappear from your feed after 24 hours, they remain archived in the app. So, if you post a story but it expires before you get a chance to save the video, dont worry, you can still recover it.
Like many users, you may not know that this feature exists, let alone how to access it. Lets take a look at how you can view old Instagram Stories.
Can I Watch A Story More Than Once
Absolutely! As long as its within the 24-hour period you can watch the Story as many times as youd like. u003ca href=u0022https://social.techjunkie.com/tell-who-view-instagram-story-first/u0022u003eInstagram does tell the creator that you watched their contentu003c/au003e, but it doesnt tell them how many times you watched.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eJust beware, if you watch their Story over and over again, theyll see the view count increase and you may be the only person whos seen it. This is a sure-fire sign that youve been watching their Story, a lot.
How To View Your Story Archive On Messenger App
Just follow these steps and you will learn how you can do it:
Thats how its done!
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Can You View Someone Elses Expired Instagram Story
In terms of seeing other users Stories that have already expired, thats about as far as you can go. This feature was always intended to be ephemeral, just like Snapchat Stories.
However, if you frequently find yourself wanting to view other users expired stories, there are a few proactive steps you can take.
Accessing Your Expired Instagram Stories
As Instagram Stories increased in popularity, more and more users started asking Instagram for a way to access their stories outside of the regular 24 hour time limit.
In response to this, Instagram added the Highlights and Archive features back in 2017. Highlights allow you to group story elements and post them on your profile as a regular post. Theyre labeled as Highlights but they behave the same as a regular Instagram post.
The other feature, Archive, saves your stories for future use. Its important to note that your stories get archived for your use only. For other people, they will disappear after 24 hours like normal.
The archiving feature should be turned on by default, but if it isnt, you can turn it on in your Settings. Find the Stories panel in your Privacy Settings and toggle on the option that says Save to Archive.
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Screen Recording Instagram Stories
If youre looking to save someone elses Instagram Story for future reference you can always screen record or screenshot the content during the 24-hour active period. You may wonder if Instagram will notify another user that youve captured the content.
There is a lot of debate about this, but as of right now youre in the clear to take undetected screenshots of Instagram Stories. This wont work with DMs, and Instagram has changed this several times through the years so youll want to test it on another friend before taking a screenshot of someone who youd rather your activities stay anonymous.
Once youve captured the story on your iPhone or Android, you can revisit the story in your camera roll as many times as youd like.
Viewing Stories Saved As Highlights
Thanks to the highlights feature on Instagram, you may get lucky and revisit your favorite content as much as youd like by visiting your friends profile. When a story is created, the account owner has the option of saving the story as a Highlight.
The story will remain on their profile until the user deletes it. Its a permanent option for displaying the best content. To check if your favorite stories were saved as a highlight do this:
Thats all there is to it. If you dont see any stories here they either werent saved as a highlight, youre not an approved follower, or their account is set to private.
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Saving Other Users Stories
The good thing about Stories is that they last a whole 24 hours. This gives you plenty of time to decide whether you want to save one.
Some websites are designed to save Instagram Stories. The most minimalist and approachable of these is Storiesig. All you need to do is enter someones username and the website will find all their active Stories. From there, just select the Story you want to save and click Download. This isnt the only option, as many other websites can do the same. However, this is the most hassle-free way to do it.
This wont give you access to expired Stories, but if you catch them within the 24 hours since they were published, youre good to go. This website also works on mobile devices, but there is another option for your phone.
Both Android and iOS have screen recorders for their newer versions. You can also get a screen recorder app and simply record the story. AZ Screen Recorder is a good option for both Android and iOS. All you have to do is start recording, view the Story, and then save the recording.
Again, these methods dont give you access to past Stories, but they do allow you to retain active Stories on your device for future use.
Can I Re
Yes. If you have a favorite Story, you can re-post it by navigating to your Archive folder as described above, then tap on the Story youd like to re-post. In the lower left-hand corner tap on the three vertical dots to access the sub-menu. Then, tap on Repost. Follow the prompts and youre Story will live on in the feeds of others for another 24 hours.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eIf youd like to re-post another persons Story you can do that too. All you need to do is tap on the paper airplane icon and share. If you dont see the option its probably because the other user has a private account. A private account means you cant share their content for anyone else to see.
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