How To Archive or Unarchive Instagram Posts

Jamie Read more July 8, 2022

Rather than users deleting content and losing the company’s potential revenue, Instagram offers a way to save it for later. It’s also beneficial to personal users because they can quickly bring up seasonal images or posts and adjust them. Rather than delete the post entirely, you can now archive it to remove it from the public’s eye. You can still view the post privately to use at a later date, but nobody else sees it. Live streams and stories get archived automatically, but this content is about “Instagram Posts.” Lets’ get started.

How To Archive or Unarchive Instagram Posts

Using Instagram Archive for Posts

The Instagram “archive” feature contains a section for stories, live streams, and posts. The Instagram “Posts” category has an opt-in feature that you must use manually. Instagram does not automatically archive old or deleted posts like other systems—just stories and live streams.

How to Access Instagram Archives to View Your Posts

When you archive a post, it remains there until you manually delete it or un-archive it. As previously mentioned, Instagram Archive gets split between posts, stories, and live content. You’ll want to view your posts.

To access the Instagram archive:

Open “Instagram,” then tap your “profile icon” in the bottom-right section.
Select the “hamburger icon” (three horizontal lines) menu in the top-right section.
Choose “Archive.”
The “Archive” menu appears, showing your stories by default. To see your archived posts, tap on the “downward arrowhead” next to “Stories Archive” and select “Posts archive.”
Your archived posts now appear.

As mentioned above, the archive is for you only and is not publicly viewable.

How to Archive Instagram Posts

From the “Home” page, tap on your “profile icon” in the bottom-right section.
Select “Posts” at the top next to your profile thumbnail.
Choose the post to archive.
Tap on the “vertical ellipsis” (three vertical dots) in the top-right section of the post.
Choose “Archive” in the list of options that appear. This action removes the post from your profile. Followers and the public cannot view it anymore.

Your Instagram post now appears in your archives for later use.

How to Unarchive Instagram Posts

Unarchiving Instagram posts is very straightforward when you want to bring a post out of hibernation and back into your profile. Go into your Instagram archive and select the option to show it on your profile again. There is no restore option, just the choice to place the archived post on your profile. Essentially, that is the same thing in this situation.

Open “Instagram” on your “profile page.” Select the “hamburger icon” (three horizontal lines) menu in the top right section.
Choose “Archive.”
Tap on the “downward arrowhead” next to “Stories Archive” and select “Posts Archive.”
Choose the post you want to unarchive and select the “horizontal ellipsis” (three horizontal dots) menu icon.
Select “Show on Profile” from the listed options.

The post now becomes active once more and is publicly viewable.

If you prefer to delete your archived post instead of making it public again, you can do it by selecting “Delete” instead of “Show on Profile.” Your post gets deleted forever and is not recoverable. Sometimes that’s a good thing!

In closing, the Instagram archive feature is a neat idea that gives you control over what others see, whether for personal use or business. While we are gradually adjusting to the temporal nature of online life, some things are worth keeping for the longer term. If you don’t keep those memories close, at least you can preserve them on Instagram.

For social media savvy businesses, this is a way of using posts and media multiple times or for seasonal offers that repeat annually or regularly. Why create a Christmas offer each year if you can archive and tweak it and then make it public again? As for personal use, the Instagram archive feature lets you store posts or images you might want to reuse later, hold onto for personal reference, or even adjust them.