What Are Instagram Highlights? Here’s How I Make the Most of Them

Instagram Highlights are a great way to keep the fun Story photos you share on your Instagram longer. You can make fun categories or tell a story by grouping certain ones together. There is definitely a lot you can do with Highlights.

What Are Instagram Highlights?

Instagram Highlights are essentially the Instagram stories you choose to feature on your profile permanently. If you add a story to a Highlight, it will be visible even after 24 hours on your profile, so it’s a great way to keep your most successful stories available for people to see.

The limit for one Instagram Highlight is 100 photos or videos, though you can create as many Highlights as you want. Once there are too many to fit on a screen, you can see them by scrolling left and right.

How to Use Instagram Story Highlights

At its core, Instagram Highlights is a simple feature, but using it can be confusing. To view them, just visit someone’s profile and tap on one. They will not know you viewed it unless the Highlight’s content is currently still on their story. On your own profile, you can create a highlight and add/remove content at any time. You won’t be able to see if someone watches your Highlight.

How to Create a Highlight on Instagram

If you don’t have any Instagram Highlights yet, you can create one from your current story or archived ones. That, of course, means you need to have the archiving feature on. It’s usually enabled by default, meaning all your old stories are still stored on Instagram. Here’s how you can double-check that and switch on the Stories Archive if need be:

1. From your profile, tap the Menu icon in the top right-hand corner.
2. Go to Archive.
3. Tap Posts archive on the top then select Stories archive.
4. Tap the three dots in the top right corner, then Settings, and toggle on Save story to archive.

Once archiving is on, you can go ahead and create your first Highlight. Here’s how:

1. From your profile, tap New.
2. Check all the stories you want to add to this new Highlight and tap Next.
3. Name your Highlight and adjust its cover.
4. Finally, tap Add and Done.

That’s it! Your first Instagram Highlight now appears on your profile.

How to Add New Stories to a Highlight

Suppose you have an Instagram Highlight that’s centered around a topic rather than around a certain place and time. This could be a series of funny photos of your cat or your favorite street art from around the globe.

In these cases, you’ll want to keep adding new stories to a Highlight you already have. Here’s how you do that:

1. Open the Highlight.
2. Tap More in the bottom right-hand corner.
3. Select Edit Highlight from the menu.
4. Select Stories.
5. Tap to select the stories you want to add to this Highlight.
6. Once ready, tap Done.

You can add your current story using the same method too. There is a more direct way, though. I use the below method to highlight a new story:

1. Open your Instagram story.
2. Tap on the Highlight icon at the bottom.
3. In the Add to Highlights pop-up, tap New.
4. Enter a name for the highlight and edit the cover if you want.
5. Finally, tap Add, and then Done.

How to Add a Custom Cover to Instagram Highlights

You may have noticed that when you create an Instagram Highlight, the app automatically picks the cover image from the stories you’re saving. You may also have noticed that big Instagram accounts often have custom Highlight covers—with their logos and in their brand colors, for example. How did they do that?

The little button that allows you to add a custom Instagram Highlight cover was actually there all along, but it’s easy to overlook it. Applying a custom cover is an easy way to make your Instagram stand out.

Here’s how you can add a custom cover for an Instagram Highlight you already have:

1. Open the Highlight and tap the More button in the lower right corner.
2. Tap Edit Highlight, and then Edit Cover.
3. You’ll see your current cover-up close and the list of covers you can choose from underneath it. Tap on the Image icon to the far left.
4. Select the custom cover from your photo library and adjust it.
5. When you’re ready, tap Done.

That’s really all there is to it. Of course, this assumes you prepared a Highlight cover beforehand and saved it to the photo library on your phone.

To make a new Highlight with a custom cover, create the Highlight like you normally would, but make sure you tap Edit Cover and then hit that Image icon next to it to open your photo library.

How to Delete an Instagram Highlight

Whatever your reason, you can easily delete an Instagram Highlight. This won’t delete the pictures from your archive or anything; it will just remove the specific collection from appearing on your profile.

1. Tap and hold the Highlight you want to remove.
2. Select Delete Highlight, then Delete from the menu.

You can also delete only certain stories from your Instagram Highlight rather than removing them altogether:

1. Open the Highlight and navigate to the story you want to delete.
2. Select More from the bottom-right corner.
3. Select Remove from Highlight from the menu.
4. Tap Remove to confirm.

How to Make the Most of Instagram Highlights

Adding custom covers and even having unique creative Highlight names can really make a huge difference in adding personality to your Instagram profile.

Instagram Highlights make your profile way more exciting, giving your followers curated stories to watch. If you run an Instagram account for your blog or online store, they are truly indispensable.

Using your Highlights to create unique categories or bits of information is great, like these accounts:

The list goes on, and hopefully, these examples will give you a few ideas of your own. You could even view your archived Instagram stories on a map and then group them in a location-based Highlight.

The name is also an important piece. Depending on your profile, you might want to go with easy, short names so people can find what they’re looking for easily. However, for a personal profile, it might be better to go creative with your names and covers. Try some names that really show off your individuality, or try making them funny.

Instagram is always growing—both in terms of its user base and functionality. There are loads of ways to make your profile more interesting. If you’re still having fun playing with your Instagram profile, be sure to experiment with different ways to spice up your Instagram stories.