If you updated Instagram on iOS and Android today, you may have noticed a few tweaks to Instagram Stories and your profile page.
The company, although not completely abandoning the ephemeral content idea, is now adopting a Stories Archive — a section of the Instagram app that files away previous stories for your reminiscing.
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“Moving forward, your stories will automatically save to your archive when they expire. This makes it easy for you to revisit your favorite moments later on or bring them back to life in a highlight,” the company explained on its blog.
The archive itself will resemble something akin to your gallery roll. It will also be private, an interesting wall put up by the social media company of its own volition, but does serve as a built-in backup service.
To access it, users can now tap the archive icon on their profiles in the top-right corner.
That isn’t the only addition though.
Instagram users can now set a Story Highlight — a semi-permanent Story loop that acts as an introductory look at your Insta.
“To create a highlight, tap the ‘New’ circle at the far left. From there, you can choose any stories from your archive, select a cover for your highlight and give it a name. Once you’re done, your highlight will appear as a circle on your profile that plays as a stand-alone story when someone taps it,” the company explains.
And unlike the traditional Instagram Stories format, this particular Story remains on your profile until you remove it. It also lacks the 24-hour limitation, allowing users to add as many “highlights” as they like.
“Story Highlights lets you show all the sides of your personality, and you can make highlights out of anything you’ve shared to your story in the past.”
Both features are now live.
