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Please log in with your username or email to continue. Facebook Google wikiHow Account No account yet? Create an account Browse Articles Quizzes & Games All Quizzes Hot Community Quizzes Personality Quizzes Dating Simulator Learn Something New Support wikiHow Log in / Sign up Computers and Electronics Social Networking Services Last Updated: July 15, 2026 Fact Checked Archiving a Story Posting to Close Friends Hiding Stories from Everyone This article was co-authored by Candace Gasper and by wikiHow staff writer, Travis Boylls . Candace Gasper is a Social Media & Digital Marketing Consultant and the Owner of Digital Candy, a social media agency. With over seven years of professional experience, Candace is an expert in social media and content creation, specializing in working with local businesses to share their narratives and help them expand their reach. Candace received her Bachelor of Science in Merchandising, Apparels, and Textiles from the University of Kentucky. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 257,021 times. The Story Highlights feature has been popular on Instagram since its introduction. It allows you to add stories to appear on your profile as highlights, even after they disappear after 24 hours. If you want to add a photo or a video to the highlights, first you have to post it as a story. This isn't ideal if you want to set up a cool highlight display at the top of your profile without subjecting your followers to a bunch of seemingly random stories. In this article, we'll show you 3 easy tricks to add highlights on Instagram without them appearing in your stories. 3 Ways to Put Highlights on Instagram Without a Story While you can't add to highlights without posting stories, there's a way to do it so nobody will see the highlights in story form: Archiving: Post a story, quickly open it, and tap ••• > Archive to hide it. Go to the archive, select the story, tap Highlight , and you're all done. Close Friends: Erase your Close Friends list, post the story to Close Friends, then add it as a highlight. Delete the story immediately, and it'll stay in your highlights. Hiding Stories: Go to ☰ > Story, live and location > Hide story and live from and select everyone. Post stories and add them to highlights. Archiving a Story 1 Post a story first. If you post a story and quickly add it to your story archive, nobody will be able to see it if you move quickly. Once the story is in your archive, you can easily add it to your highlights, even though it's not visible in your stories. You can also share an existing post to your story by scrolling to it on your profile, tapping the Sharing icon, and selecting Add to Story . You can also share an existing post to your story by scrolling to it on your profile, tapping the Sharing icon, and selecting Add to Story . 2 Tap the three dots on your story and select Archive . When the story is on the screen, you'll see the three horizontal dots at the bottom-right corner. Once you select Archive, the story will be archived immediately, and nobody will be able to see it. [1] X Research source Advertisement 3 Open your archive. To get there, tap your profile picture at the bottom-right corner of Instagram, tap the menu ☰ icon, and select Archive . 4 Switch to the Stories archive . Your "Posts archive" usually opens by default. To see your archived stories, tap Posts archive at the top, then select Stories archive . 5 Select the story and tap Highlight . It's at the bottom of the story. The "Add to highlights" menu will expand. 6 Select an existing highlight group or create a new one. If you've already created a group of highlights to add this story to, select it. Otherwise, tap + to create a new highlight group that will appear on your profile. From there, type a name for the highlight group and tap Add , and your highlight will be created. Posting to Close Friends 1 Open your Instagram settings. To do so, tap your profile icon in the lower-right corner, then tap the icon with three lines (☰) in the upper-right corner. In this method, we'll show you how to use your Close Friends list to add to your Instagram highlights without anyone seeing the story. To do this, you'll need to have an empty Close Friends list. In this method, we'll show you how to use your Close Friends list to add to your Instagram highlights without anyone seeing the story. To do this, you'll need to have an empty Close Friends list. 2 Tap Close Friends . It’s the second option below the “Who can see your content” header. [2] X Research source 3 Remove all your close friends and tap Done . To do so, uncheck the checkbox next to all your close friends. When you are done adding your highlight, you can re-add all your close friends. When you are done adding your highlight, you can re-add all your close friends. 4 Post a story to Close Friends. To do so, start posting a new story . Select the images and videos you want to post as a highlight. When you are done editing the story, tap Close Friends at the bottom of the screen to make it visible to your Close Friends only. And since you removed all your Close Friends, nobody will see the story but you. [3] X Research source If you want to do this trick with a post (photo or video reel), scroll to the post on your profile, select it, and tap the Sharing icon. From there, tap Add to Story , then choose Close Friends . If you want to do this trick with a post (photo or video reel), scroll to the post on your profile, select it, and tap the Sharing icon. From there, tap Add to Story , then choose Close Friends . 5 Create a new highlight. If you want to create a new highlight group that appears on your profile, tap your profile image in the lower-right corner of the Instagram app, then tap + New under "Edit Profile." If you want to add your new story to a highlight group that's already on your profile, open your story instead, tap the three dots at the bottom, and select Highlight . Then, choose which highlight group to add it to. If you want to add your new story to a highlight group that's already on your profile, open your story instead, tap the three dots at the bottom, and select Highlight . Then, choose which highlight group to add it to. 6 Select the story you want to add to your highlight and tap Next . This creates a new highlight group.

7 Enter a name for the highlight group. To do so, tap where it says “Highlights” and type a new name for the highlight. Once you have more than one story highlight in this highlight group, you can choose a different cover photo for the highlight. Once you have more than one story highlight in this highlight group, you can choose a different cover photo for the highlight. 8 Tap Done . The story you created is now saved as a highlight. [4] X Research source Repeat for other stories you want to add. Repeat for other stories you want to add. 9 Delete the story. Even if you delete the story you've added to your highlights, the highlight will still be there. This means you don't have to wait 24 hours to remove the story. Just open the story, tap the three dots at the bottom, and select Delete story . [5] X Research source Hiding Stories from Everyone 1 Open the Settings in Instagram. To do so, tap your profile icon in the lower-right corner. Then tap the icon with three lines (☰) in the upper-right corner. This method involves hiding your stories from everyone for just long enough to post the highlight. If you have a lot of followers, it's probably more trouble than it's worth. However, if your Instagram account is fairly new or you plan to post highlights often without posting stories, this is another alternative. This method involves hiding your stories from everyone for just long enough to post the highlight. If you have a lot of followers, it's probably more trouble than it's worth. However, if your Instagram account is fairly new or you plan to post highlights often without posting stories, this is another alternative. 2 Tap Story, live and location . It’s the second-to-last option below the “Who can see your content” header. [6] X Research source 3 Tap Hide story and live from . It’s the first option at the top of the page. 4 Select everyone on your list and tap Done . This will hide your stories from everyone. 5 Upload your story. Now that your stories are hidden from everyone but you, you can post as many stories as you want without anyone seeing them. 6 Create a new highlight. If you want to create a new highlight group that appears on your profile, tap your profile image in the lower-right corner of the Instagram app, then tap + New under "Edit Profile." If you want to add your new story to a highlight group that's already on your profile, open your story instead, tap the three dots at the bottom, and select Highlight . Then, choose which highlight group to add it to. If you want to add your new story to a highlight group that's already on your profile, open your story instead, tap the three dots at the bottom, and select Highlight . Then, choose which highlight group to add it to. 7 Select the story you want to add to your highlight and tap Next . This creates a new highlight group. 8 Enter a name for the highlight group and tap Done . To do so, tap where it says “Highlights” and type a new name for the highlight. The story you created is now saved as a highlight. [7] X Research source Once you have more than one story highlight in this highlight group, you can choose a different cover photo for the highlight. Now that the story is in your highlights, you can safely delete it from your stories. Just return to the story, tap the three dots, and select Delete story . To unhide your stories from everyone, return to ☰ > Story, live and location > Hide story and live from , remove everyone from the list, and tap Done . Once you have more than one story highlight in this highlight group, you can choose a different cover photo for the highlight. Now that the story is in your highlights, you can safely delete it from your stories. Just return to the story, tap the three dots, and select Delete story . To unhide your stories from everyone, return to ☰ > Story, live and location > Hide story and live from , remove everyone from the list, and tap Done . You Might Also Like ↑ https://help.instagram.com/1935507879999791 ↑ https://help.instagram.com/476003390920140/?cms_platform=android-app&helpref=platform_switcher ↑ https://help.instagram.com/476003390920140/?cms_platform=android-app&helpref=platform_switcher ↑ https://help.instagram.com/813938898787367/ ↑ https://help.instagram.com/554684988067878/ ↑ https://help.instagram.com/1177797265575168/ ↑ https://help.instagram.com/813938898787367/ About This Article Send fan mail to authors Is this article up to date? Quizzes & Games You Might Also Like Trending Articles Trending Articles Take the Quiz. Face the Truth. 🔥 Decode Yourself 🧩 Featured Videos Hot Takes Only 🔥 Your Daily Dose of Fun 🎉 Computers and Electronics Social Networking Services Do Not Sell or Share My Info Not Selling Info wikiHow Tech Help: Tech troubles got you down? We've got the tips you need