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For years now, Instagram Archives and Highlights have been my go-to for preserving memories. Unfortunately, a technical bug from Meta’s end affected several of my archived Stories—which is why I’ve decided to back up all my Stories moving forward.
What Exactly Was the Instagram Bug and Did It Affect All Users?
Instagram Stories are one of the best ways of saving your memories. After 24 hours, any Story you post is automatically stored in the Archive section.
You can either leave them in your Archive or add them to your Highlights, so your followers can view them after the initial 24 hours. While there are workarounds you can use toadd images and videos to your Instagram Highlights, using theStories archiveis the simplest method.
Unfortunately, a technical glitch affected some images and videos saved in theStories archivesection, resulting in permanent deletion. While the company stated in the notification that they’ve now fixed the bug, it does ultimately mean that the lost Stories can’t be restored.
CNN reportsthat Meta declined to disclose exactly how many users were affected by this bug. However, it does appear to be quite widespread, particularly among those who post frequently and have many Highlights.
To check if your stories have been permanently deleted, go to your Instagram profile, tap thethree-lined icon, and tapArchiveunder theHow you use Instagramheader. If you’re greeted with a notification titled “A technical issue affected some of your archived stories”, some of your Stories have been deleted permanently.
Another way to check is by going to your Instagram profile and checking your existing Highlights. If a Highlight’s cover has been replaced by awarningicon, it means the technical glitch affected those Stories as well.
When you tap a Highlight with awarningicon, you’ll yet again see a notification stating, “This story is no longer available.”
All affected Stories will be removed from your Archives automatically by July 2025.
Don’t Rely on Instagram Alone, Back Your Stuff Up
If your Stories have been affected by the glitch, there’s nothing you can do now. While you’ll see an option toRemove affected storiesat once, you can’t manually save them to your device or view the deleted Stories.
The best course of action is to learn from this experience andback up your contentgoing forward. When you’re uploading a Story, simply tap thethree horizontal dotsin the top-right corner and selectSavefrom the dropdown menu to save it to your camera roll.
If you aren’t a fan of saving every image or video you post to your Story manually, you can enable an option to automatically save every Story you post to your camera roll.
To do so, switch to theHometab and swipe left to reveal the camera. Then, tap theSettingsicon in the top-right corner of the screen and tapStory. Finally, toggle on the switch next toSave story to camera roll.
Sure, if you’re sharing a funny meme or Reel you saw, you don’t necessarily need to save it elsewhere, since losing it would do no harm. However, if you’re posting an image of you and your friends hanging out or a video of your pet that you wouldn’t want to lose, backing up is always a good idea.
This way, you can recover your data in case a glitch like this occurs again. You have various backup options, such as differentcloud storage serviceslike iCloud or Google Drive, or physical storage like USB drives, memory cards, or external hard drives.
Regardless of the method you choose to back up your data, after this glitch, I’d recommend not trusting a single company with your data, even if it’s a major one like Meta. Having lost many memories saved on Instagram, I also took the time to back up all my images and videos I had saved on Snapchat. After all, you never know when you’ll need to recover your data.
