Social media management is way harder and more complicated than people give it credit for. It’s not just a question of posting constantly to social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and whatever Twitter is called these days. It’s also super important for brands to maintain a cohesive public profile that takes into account how all those posts come together to tell a story visually. That’s why one of the most popular Instagram features out today is the posts archive. (Not to be confused with the app called Archive — that’s us! Hey! We’ll get back to that later.)
Let’s dive into the nitty gritty details of how to view your Instagram posts archive so you can get more out of this super helpful feature.
What You’ll Learn:
- Instagram’s in-app archive is a great way to hide posts for any reason.
- You’re the only one who can see your archived posts.
- Archiving posts is temporary and you can repost old content anytime.
- There are also archive sections for stories and live videos.
- There are other great ways to privately and securely save past posts.
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How Does Instagram’s Archive Feature Work?
Archiving your Instagram posts is one of the best ways to curate your profile grid. It’s even more personal than setting your profile to private, because you’re the only one who can see what’s in your archive. That’s actually one of the most popular FAQs about archiving Instagram posts! Any posts you send to Instagram’s in-app archive are only visible to you.
It’s also not as permanent as deleting a post, because you can always see the posts you’ve archived or even unarchive them to make them visible on your Instagram feed again.
Think of archived Instagram posts like your private storage folder in the app. There are any number of reasons you might want to archive Instagram posts:
- Consistency: As your branding evolves, you want your grid to show a cohesive snapshot of your vibe. Old posts can clutter your feed and distract from the customer experience you’re trying to create.
- Timeliness: Lots of brand accounts post content about time-sensitive topics, whether that’s current events and what’s happening in the news or giveaways with fixed deadlines. When that content gets stale, it’s a good idea to hide it from your feed so you don’t seem like you’re behind the times.
- Product updates: Keep your Instagram grid relevant by archiving posts about products that you’ve discontinued or redesigned. This is a good way to manage expectations and keep your followers from feeling disappointed or misled.
- Overall look: Working on a huge launch or earth-shattering announcement? Archiving posts is a good way to clear the decks for dramatic effect, without losing all that content in case you want to publish it again some day.
- Brand safety: In today’s social media world, controversy can get out of hand quickly. If influencers you worked with in the past start coming under fire, you can archive those posts so they don’t show up in your feed anymore and you don’t go down with the sinking ship.
Benefits of Archived Instagram Posts
The primary benefit of Instagram’s archiving feature is the ability to keep your grid fresh and relevant. Whether you’re refocusing your company values, updating your brand colors, or just adding and removing products from your collection, it’s important that you keep accurate and up-to-date content front and center as much as possible.
The next key benefit is that archiving posts is temporary. Instagram’s archive essentially allows you to hide posts for any reason, and then return them to your grid if you change your mind or if that content becomes relevant again. It’s even helpful when things go wrong; not sure whether or not you have permission to use a post? Archive it until you get your usage rights resolved, and then you can add it back to the grid without having to redo any of that creative work.
The best part about this “undo” option is that when you unarchive Instagram posts and send them back to your grid, they return to the same position where they originally appeared. It also shows all the engagement stats that it earned before you archived it. And those like, comment, and share stats pick up where they left off when you archived the post, so the numbers keep growing.
Say you decide to put a few old posts back on your grid down the road. If you had deleted them completely, you’d be facing a huge amount of redundant and repetitive work to repost them again. But if you archive posts, you can easily restore them without any extra effort at all.
How To Archive An Instagram Post
Archiving Instagram posts is surprisingly easy. Just open the Instagram app, navigate to your Instagram profile, and find the post you want to archive. Tap the image to open it full-screen, and tap the ⋯ menu in the top right corner. Then tap Archive. That’s it! Your selected post will disappear from your profile immediately.
You can also Archive reels in the same way. Open the reel you want to add to your archive, Tap the ⋯ menu on that reel, tap Manage, then tap Archive. It’s a little confusing, but the archived reel will appear in your posts archive alongside any other feed posts you’ve archived. It’s worth remembering that if you archive a reel, any remixes of that reel will be automatically deleted. Other than that, archiving (and unarchiving) reels works the same way as feed posts.
How To See Your Archived Instagram Posts
It’s very easy to see all your archived Instagram posts in one place. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to do it:
- Open the Instagram app (you need to use the mobile app on an Android phone or Apple iPhone with iOS, it won’t work in a web browser).
- Tap your profile icon in the bottom right corner to open your profile.
- Tap the ☰ menu (with three horizontal lines) in the top right-hand corner of your profile.
- Tap Archive to see a grid of all the posts you’ve archived so far.
It’s as simple as that. Keep in mind, even though this page looks a little bit like a profile grid, you’re the only one who can see the posts you’ve archived. Your followers can’t see any of the posts, reels, stories, or live broadcasts saved in the archived section of your Instagram account.
You can unarchive any of your old posts and reels to send them back to your profile wherever they first appeared, with all their original engagement stats intact. It’s also a stealth move, because no one will be notified that you’ve restored the post. It also won’t show up in your followers’ feeds, because it’s not technically a new post.
View Your Archived Stories and Live Videos
While you’re viewing your archived Instagram posts, you can also check out other sections of the in-app archive option. Just tap on the posts archive title at the top of the screen and select stories archive or live archive from the drop-down menu. Here’s what you need to know about these sections:
Instagram stories archive
Everyone knows that Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. But when they do, they actually live on forever in the in-app stories archive. You can’t push them back to your active story after they expire, but there are a lot of other options:
- Add stories to your story highlights.
- Publish stories as feed posts.
- Send stories as messages.
- Download stories to your camera roll.
Instagram live archive
When you broadcast live on Instagram, those videos also appear automatically in your Instagram archive and remain active there for 30 days. From there, you can publish archived live videos to your profile page by turning them into reels. You can choose a cover photo, write a caption, tag people, add a location, add a fundraiser, and refine your advanced settings selections, the same way you would with any reel on Instagram. You can also download your archived live videos or delete them completely.
To use the Instagram stories archive and Instagram live archive features, you’ll need to make sure they’re turned on in your app settings. You can do that from the settings for each archive page; navigate to the stories archive or live archive, tap the ⋯ menu in the top right corner, tap Settings, and turn on the “save to archive” toggle.
The truth is, Instagram usually turns on these archiving features automatically. To double check both toggles in one place, follow these steps:
- Tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the app to go to your profile.
- Tap the ☰ menu in the top right-hand corner, then tap Settings and privacy.
- Scroll down to the Your app and media section, then tap Archiving and downloading.
You’ll see options to save live to archive and save story to archive. If they’re turned on, you’re good to go! Your stories and live videos will appear in Instagram’s in-app archive automatically.
A Better Way to Collect Your UGC
Now that you know all about Instagram’s in-app archive, it’s time to meet another kind of Archive. Archive automatically detects and collects all your brand’s tagged UGC so you can organize, repurpose, and report on it from your very own beautiful and intuitive library. Want to save your own content for posterity, but don’t want the world to see those old posts? Create a collection in Archive based on any topic or theme you want. You can even share it with your team securely using one-click private links, without having to send them your Instagram (or Archive) login credentials.
Ready to activate more influencers with less stress and manage your brand UGC headache-free? Get started with Archive for free today.
