Instagram Highlights are a fantastic way to showcase your best stories.
This highlights on your profile last longer than the usual 24-hour limit.
But what happens when you accidentally delete one of your cherished highlights?
Losing Instagram Highlights can be frustrating, especially if they contain important memories or brand content that you intended to keep visible.
Accidentally Deleted Instagram Highlights
Fortunately, it is possible to restore accidentally deleted Instagram Highlights under certain circumstances.
In this guide, we will walk you through how to recover deleted highlights on Instagram, prevent future data loss, and answer frequently asked questions. Let’s dive in!
1. Can You Restore Accidentally Deleted Instagram Highlights?
Before discussing the steps to recover your deleted highlights, it’s essential to clarify what happens when you delete Instagram Highlights.
Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t have a specific “Recycle Bin” for deleted Highlights, so recovering them directly from the app isn’t possible.
However, if the stories were originally saved in your Archived Stories, you have a good chance of restoring them.
Key takeaway: If the stories in your deleted highlights were saved in your Instagram Archive, you can easily restore them. If not, recovery becomes challenging.
2. Steps to Restore Accidentally Deleted Instagram Highlights from Archive
If the stories that made up your Instagram Highlights were stored in your Archive, you can restore them by following these steps:
1. Go to Your Profile: Open your Instagram app and tap the profile icon in the lower right corner of the screen.
2. Access Archived Stories: Tap the three horizontal lines (menu) at the top right, then select Archive.
By default, you should be able to see your archived stories here. If not, ensure that story archiving is enabled (we’ll cover this later).
3. Find Deleted Stories: Scroll through your archived stories to find the ones that were originally part of your deleted highlight.
4. Recreate the Highlight: Once you find the stories, you can add them back to a new or existing highlight:
- Tap the Highlight icon at the bottom of the story.
- Choose an existing highlight or create a new one.
This method will allow you to restore the deleted Instagram highlight from the archived stories that Instagram automatically saves for you (if archiving was enabled).
3. Check Your Instagram Activity Log for Deleted Highlights
While Instagram doesn’t directly log deleted highlights, you can check your activity log to see when a highlight was deleted.
This is useful to trace back what might have gone wrong and help you decide if the stories from that highlight are still in the archive.
To access your Instagram activity log:
- Go to your Profile.
- Tap the Menu icon (three lines).
- Select Your Activity.
Here, you can review your interactions with posts, highlights, and other content, but remember that it will not allow you to retrieve deleted highlights.
4. Enable Instagram Story Archiving
If your story archiving wasn’t enabled before you deleted the highlights, you may lose the stories permanently.
However, enabling archiving now will ensure that future stories are automatically saved to your archive for recovery.
Here’s how you can ensure your Instagram Story archiving is on:
1. Go to Profile Settings: Tap on your profile icon and select the three lines at the top right to open the menu. Then, go to Settings.
2. Select Privacy Settings: Under the Privacy tab, find and tap Story.
3. Enable Save to Archive: Scroll down until you see the Saving section, and toggle on the Save Story to Archive option.
By enabling this feature, all your future Instagram Stories will be saved automatically in your Archive, which makes it easy to recover them if they’re ever deleted from your highlights.
5. Backup Stories to Your Device to Prevent Future Loss
While Instagram’s archive feature is a helpful tool, having an additional backup of your Instagram Stories on your device ensures that you can restore them whenever needed.
Here’s how to save your stories to your phone:
1. Manually Save Each Story: Before your Instagram Story expires or is deleted, you can manually save it to your phone’s gallery by tapping the three dots at the bottom right of the story and selecting Save.
2. Enable Automatic Save to Camera Roll:
- Go to Settings in your profile.
- Tap Privacy, then go to Story
- Toggle on save to Camera Roll to ensure that every story you post is saved automatically to your phone.
Saving stories externally means that even if something goes wrong with your Instagram Highlights, you have a personal backup that can be uploaded again if necessary.
6. Restore Accidentally Deleted Instagram Highlights Using Third-Party Tools
If the above methods do not work and you have no backup, some third-party tools or services may claim to recover deleted Instagram content.
However, it’s essential to exercise caution when using external apps to retrieve social media data, as these can sometimes breach privacy or violate Instagram’s terms of service.
Note: There is no official third-party tool endorsed by Instagram for recovering deleted highlights, so it’s best to try internal recovery methods first.
FAQs 6 Easy Ways to Restore Accidentally Deleted Instagram Highlights
How long do Instagram Stories stay in the archive?
Instagram Stories are archived indefinitely once they expire after 24 hours, provided that the story archiving feature is enabled in your settings.
What happens if I delete a highlight by mistake?
If the stories within the deleted highlight are still in your Archive, you can restore them by recreating the highlight.
If they’re not archived, unfortunately, there is no official way to recover them through Instagram.
Can I recover highlights deleted more than 30 days ago?
If the stories were archived, they remain in your archive indefinitely and can be retrieved.
However, if they were not saved to the archive, they cannot be recovered after deletion.
Can I prevent losing highlights in the future?
Yes, ensure that Instagram Story archiving is enabled in your settings and regularly back up your stories to your device.
Is there a way to undo the deletion of a highlight immediately after deleting it?
Unfortunately, Instagram does not have an undo feature for deleted highlights, but you can still recreate the highlight from your archived stories if they were saved.
Conclusion
Accidentally deleting an Instagram highlight doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone forever.
If you had story archiving enabled, you can easily restore accidentally deleted Instagram Highlights by accessing your archived stories and recreating the highlight.
To avoid losing important content in the future, ensure that both your story archive and automatic save features are enabled.
With the steps outlined in this guide, you can confidently recover your deleted highlights and prevent such accidents from happening again.
PrimeGate Digital is a Result Driven Blog that strives to go beyond ‘Conventional Digital Marketing’ through digital innovation and performance marketing. We have experience working with world class brands and products.
