How to Create Highlights on Instagram: Steps, Covers & Tips

Instagram stories vanish after 24 hours, which seems wasteful when a story shows your best moments. Highlights solve that problem by pinning selected stories to your profile, right below your bio section. This guide explains how to create highlights on Instagram, add covers, and keep them organized over time.

Highlights work well for travel memories, product demos, client reviews, and frequently asked questions from followers. For richer stories, read our guide on how to add multiple photos to instagram story first.

Quick Answer: How Do You Create a Highlight?

Open your profile, tap the New button under your bio, select archived stories, and name the highlight. You can also tap Highlight on any live story within its first 24 hours. Story archiving must stay switched on, or older stories will not appear for selection.

What You Need Before Creating Highlights

Highlights pull stories from your story archive, so the archive setting needs to stay active. Instagram turns this setting on by default, but some users disable it to save storage. Check it by opening Settings and privacy, tapping Archiving and downloading, and enabling Save story to archive. Without that setting, only stories posted within the last 24 hours can join a new highlight.

How to Create Highlights on Instagram From Your Profile

Step 1: Open Your Profile

Launch the Instagram app and tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the screen. Look below your bio for the row of circles that holds existing highlights or a New button.

Step 2: Tap New

Tap the plus circle labeled New, which opens a grid of every story saved in your archive. Stories appear in date order, with the newest ones sitting at the top of the grid.

Step 3: Select Your Stories

Tap each story you want inside the highlight, and a checkmark appears on every selected item. Pick stories that share one theme, since focused highlights get more taps than random collections.

Step 4: Choose a Cover and Name

Tap Next, then tap Edit Cover to choose a frame from the stories or upload a photo. Type a short name, ideally under fifteen characters, because Instagram cuts longer titles on the profile.

Step 5: Tap Add or Done

Tap Add on iPhone or Done on Android, and the highlight appears on your profile right away. Visit your profile once to confirm the cover, title, and story order all look correct.

How to Add a Live Story to a Highlight

You can save a story to a highlight while it still plays for your followers. Open your active story, tap the Highlight heart icon at the bottom, and pick an existing highlight. Tap New in that menu if you want to start a fresh highlight using the current story. This method saves time because you never need to dig through older archive pages later.

How to Edit or Remove a Highlight

Press and hold any highlight on your profile, then tap Edit highlight from the menu that appears. From there, you can rename it, change the cover, add more stories, or remove selected ones. To delete the whole highlight, press and hold it again and choose Delete highlight from the menu. Deleting a highlight keeps the original stories safe inside your archive for future use.

Task	Where to Find It
Create a highlight	Profile, New button
Add a live story	Story, Highlight icon
Change a cover	Edit highlight, Edit Cover
Delete a highlight	Press and hold, Delete

Keep this table handy, since every highlight action starts from either your profile or a story. If you want to hide feed posts in a similar way, read how to archive instagram post.

Who Can See Your Highlights?

Highlights follow your account privacy, so public profiles show them to anyone who visits. Private accounts limit highlights to approved followers, keeping personal stories inside a trusted circle. Stories shared with Close Friends stay limited to that list, even after you add them. Hidden story settings also carry over, so people you hid stories from cannot watch those highlights.

Why Your Stories Might Not Appear

Missing stories usually mean the archive setting stayed off when you originally posted them. Instagram cannot recover stories that expired before archiving was enabled on your account. Updating the app also fixes display glitches that sometimes hide recent stories from the selection grid.

Highlight Ideas for Personal and Business Profiles

Personal accounts often group highlights by trips, hobbies, pets, family events, and favorite recipes. Business accounts gain more from highlights covering products, reviews, pricing, delivery details, and common questions. A clear FAQ highlight answers repeat questions before customers even send a direct message. Creators often add a Start Here highlight that introduces their content, schedule, and best posts.

Tips for Better Instagram Highlights

• Group stories by clear themes such as reviews, tutorials, travel, or behind the scenes moments.
• Use matching cover designs so your highlight row looks tidy and professional on the profile.
• Add a fresh story to an important highlight, which usually moves it to the front of the row.
• Remove outdated stories every few months so visitors only see current offers and accurate details.
• Keep each highlight under thirty stories, because long highlights lose viewers before the final slide.

Final Thoughts

Now you know how to create highlights on Instagram and turn short stories into lasting profile content. Keep the archive setting active, choose clear themes, and refresh covers whenever your style changes. Visitors judge your profile within seconds, so a neat highlight row makes that first visit count. Find more helpful Instagram tutorials on Haro Builder and keep your profile in great shape.