How to Use Instagram Archive Feature to Hide Your Posts

Instagram provides a useful archive feature for those posts you’d prefer not to display publicly without deleting them entirely. It’s a perfect method for managing content that may be too personal or irrelevant at the moment—like during a breakup or to keep certain memories away from colleagues—allowing you to preserve them for future reminiscence.

Understanding the Difference Between Archiving and Deleting Posts on Instagram

Using the archive option on Instagram lets you keep your cherished memories safe and private, away from your visible profile. In contrast, deleting a post is irreversible, meaning it will be permanently removed from your account. If you’ve backed up your media, this won’t be an issue, but if you’d like your posts accessible through the app—even if they’re not visible on your profile—archiving is the best choice.

Archived posts are securely stored in a designated folder within the app that you can easily reach through the settings. Whenever you feel the need, you can restore these posts with minimal effort.

For posts you’ve deleted, you have a grace period of 30 days to recover them. Simply navigate to Settings -> Your Activity -> Recently Deleted to retrieve your content. After this period, you may need to rely on third-party solutions or an older data backup to recover deleted media.

Archiving Posts on the Instagram Mobile App

To archive posts using the Instagram app on your mobile device, visit your profile (available on Android or iOS), and choose the post you want to hide. Tap the three dots located in the top-right corner.

From the menu, select Archive to remove the post from your profile grid.

If you want to archive a video, go to the Reels tab on your profile, open the video, and tap the three dots in the lower-right corner.

Choose Manage, then select Archive from the options presented.

For stories, even though they disappear after 24 hours, you can still revisit them; Instagram allows for automatic saving of these stories in your archive, including live videos.

To guarantee your stories automatically save to the archive, tap the hamburger menu on your profile page, scroll down to the Your app and media section, and select Archiving and downloading.

Ensure that the options Save story to archive and Save live to archive are activated.

If you prefer not to archive every story, you can also manually save specific stories. On the story creation screen, tap the three dots in the upper-right corner and choose Save to download the story to your device.

Archiving Posts on Instagram via Web

To archive posts through Instagram on your computer, launch your browser and log into Instagram. Click on the More button located on the left side of the screen, then select Your Activity.

Navigate to Photos and videos to access all your recent profile grid posts. Change tabs to view your Reels and archive Highlights as well. Click Select in the upper-right corner.

Click on each post you wish to select, then press Archive at the bottom of the screen.

This method is particularly effective for bulk archiving of posts, though my personal experience suggests that finding older posts can be challenging on a computer, often yielding difficulties despite using available filters.

Accessing and Restoring Archived Instagram Posts

The purpose of archiving your Instagram posts is often to revisit them later. If you change your mind about hiding a post, restoring it to your profile is simple.

Navigate to your profile in the Instagram app and tap the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner. From the How to use Instagram section, select Archive.

Upon doing this, you’ll access the Stories archive. You can scroll through the stories available.

Swipe up to look at older stories. If you’d like to relive a moment with your audience, tap on a story and press Share.

You also have the option to edit the story before reposting it.

To check your Post or Live archives, tap on Stories archive at the top and choose your preferred archive type.

In this guide, I’ll check my Posts archive to see all archived content (including Reels).

If you decide to restore a post, tap on it, select the three dots in the upper-right corner, and choose + Show on Profile.

Confirm by hitting Show on profile in the pop-up, even if the item isn’t a Reel. A Restored notification should appear on your screen.

Return to your profile to check if the posts or Reels have reappeared. If they remain hidden, try closing the app and reopening it.

When accessing your Instagram archive through a PC, your options will be somewhat limited. Visit your Instagram profile using a browser, and in the upper-right corner, find the View Archive button next to Edit Profile.

However, note that only the story archive can be viewed on a computer, and individual stories cannot be reshared from this archive.

Image credits: Pexels, Flaticon. All screenshots are by Alexandra Arici.

Author: Egor Kostenko

My goal is to make complex technical topics simple and accessible. On this site, I gather unique and useful content that not only solves users’ problems but also helps them better understand the capabilities of Windows.