How To Archive Posts On Instagram: New Feature Available To All Users

Instead of deleting a precious but possibly embarrassing memory from your Instagram profile, now you can archive it instead. The “archive” feature rolled out to users on Tuesday in an update. The goal was to give users more freedom by allowing them to cultivate and change their profiles as they evolve, Instagram said in a blog post.

The new feature allows users to move certain posts to a part of their profile that only they can see, and move them back to their profiles whenever they want. The new feature will be available on Instagram versions 10.21 and higher for iOS and Android devices.

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The update rolled out in test mode for some users last month while it was still under development. The many updates that have come to the app in recent months are a symptom of the stiff competition with Snapchat, which heated up last summer when Instagram added its own "stories" feature that mimics Snapchat.

How to archive a prior post on Instagram:

Once the new feature is available on your phone, you’ll likely get a small notification in the app next time you open your profile page. It will drop down from the archive button and explain that any post you archive can be found by clicking the archive button.

If you haven’t archived anything, the page the button opens will have no photos and will say “No Archived Photos.” You will, however, find directions here about how to archive posts in the future. To archive a post, go back to your profile and scroll to whatever photo you’d like to hide and tap the “...” (this is horizontal on iOS devices and vertical on Android devices) option that appears in the upper right corner. This will bring up a menu where you can select to “archive,” “turn off commenting,” “edit,” “share” or “delete” the post.

Choose “archive,” and the post automatically will be sent to that archived space that you can access by selecting the icon in the upper right corner of your profile. It looks like a clock with an arrow pointing counterclockwise. You’ll no longer see it on your profile. It solely will be visible in the archived section of your profile that only you can see. Even once you archive a post you will still see the likes and comments it had when it was still on your profile.

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You can remove a post easily from your archive. Select the photo in the archive section and tap the “...” again. This will bring up options to “show on profile” and the other options that were available when you put it in the archive. Once you select “show on profile” the photo or video will reappear on your profile in the same spot it originally occupied in chronological order. Once you do this your followers will be able to see the post once again.