If You're Missing Instagram Story Highlights, The Reason Might Be Really Simple
Instagram is arguably the social media platform of the moment right now. So when something with the app goes awry, a mass public outrage over the glitch is pretty much bound to happen. The platform just introduced a new feature a couple of months back in Dec. 2017 that allows you to consolidate your Insta stories into highlights sections, which are displayed on your account's homepage. But if you're asking yourself "why don't I have Instagram Story Highlights" on my page, I might have the answer for you.
Instagram Story Highlights were announced on Dec. 5, 2017, and since then they've quickly become one of the best additions to the social media platform since the app's inception. Typically Insta stories are only visible on your profile for 24 hours, but Instagram Story Highlights allows you to consolidate saved stories from your library and create moments that live on your profile for as long as you want them too. It's the perfect way to make your profile even more personal and add some cute extra touches that share your life story more fully.
Naturally the feature has become super popular, because of the creativity it allows for Instagram users to employ and for the longevity of the posts. So if they're not showing up for some people, I can understand why you might be feeling left out. But first things first: have you actually created your own highlights yet?
Highlights don't show up automatically — they have to be created. But it's pretty easy to do: Basically, to create a new highlight, you have to go to your profile and click the circle below your profile picture that says "New." After you click, a library of all your previously posted Insta story clips and snapshots will pop up, and you can select the clips that you want to include in your specified "Story Highlight" that you're creating. Once you're done, you add a title to the highlight, and that's all she wrote! If you need even more help, you can always check out Instagram's own how-to on making your highlights, but I think we've pretty much covered the bases.
But people have seen highlights actually go missing, too. Back in April, the highlights started disappearing from users' profiles, everyone started freaking out over the lost memories. In a statement from Instagram to Elite Daily on April 3, the company says,
We discovered a bug that temporarily prevented some users from being able to see their Highlights. We quickly issued a fix to restore Highlights for everyone. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused.
The company advised trying to restart the app and seeing if the highlights pop back up once you reboot, so on the off chance you're scoffing at the idea you didn't know about making a highlight and you just don't know what's up with your app, you can try the old standby of turning it off and on again.
Instagram is basically becoming an all-in-one app right now, and this Story Highlight feature just adds another dimension to the way this app documents your life. So if you're not getting the full picture, I totally understand your frustration. But fret not, social media mavens. Highlights are here for you.
This post was originally published on July 18, 2018. It was updated on Aug. 8, 2019 by Lilli Petersen.
