Whether you’ve posted a story accidentally, are looking to clean up your stories archive, or a friend has posted a story to your Instagram without your permission… Whatever your reasoning, we’re here to show you how to delete an accidental or unwanted Instagram story.
To learn how simply follow the step-by-step guides below. For all other information and queries, please see our FAQs at the end of this article.
Table of Contents
How to delete a current Instagram story (mobile/tablet)
- Open up the Instagram app on your device and sign in if necessary
- Navigate to the home page (if not already there), by pressing the ‘Home’ icon in the bottom left of your screen
- Next, tap the ‘Your story’ icon (your profile picture) in the top left of the screen, to take you to your active/current story
- Now, navigate through to the first story you wish to delete, by tapping on the right-side of the screen to move through your story
- Once you’ve reached the story you wish to delete, tap the ‘More’ three dots icon in the bottom right (Android), or similar (iOS).
- Finally, from the pop-up menu, tap ‘Delete’. You’ll be asked to confirm the deletion, to do so, tap ‘Delete’ one last time.
- Repeat as necessary.
How to delete a current Instagram story (desktop online)
- Open up your preferred web browser and navigate to the Instagram website, sign if if necessary
- Navigate to the home page (if not already there), by clicking the ‘Home’ icon in the top right of your screen
- Next, click the larger of the two of your profile pictures in the top-right of the screen (at the far end of the story row), to take you to your active/current story
- Now, navigate through to the first story you wish to delete, by clicking on the arrows either side of each story screen
- Once you’ve located the story you wish to delete, click the three horizontal dots in the top-right of the screen
- Finally, from the drop-down menu, select ‘Delete’. You will be asked to confirm the deletion, to do so, click ‘Delete’ one more time.
- Repeat as necessary.
How to delete an archived Instagram story (only possible on mobile/tablet)
- Open up the Instagram app on your device and sign in if necessary
- Navigate to your profile page by tapping your profile picture in the bottom-right of the screen
- Once there, tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right of the page
- From the drop-down menu, select ‘Archive’
- You’ll be navigated to a screen showing you every single one of your archived stories. Scroll through them until you locate the first story you wish to delete.
- Tap on the story you wish to delete, and then tap the ‘More’ three vertical dots icon in the bottom-right of the story (Android), or similar (iOS)
- From the pop-up options, select ‘Delete’
- When prompted to confirm the deletion, do so by tapping ‘Delete’ one more time
- Repeat as necessary to delete as many stories from your Archive as you like
And there you have it! Whatever your reason for doing so, you can quickly and easily delete any unwanted or accidentally posted Instagram story, either from your current reel of stories or from your Profile’s story archive. Happy Instagramming!
For any additional information, or if you have any unanswered questions, please direct your attention to the FAQs below.
Frequently asked questions
Why would I want to delete my Instagram story?
Instagram stories are all the rage and have been for some time. They allow users to upload and edit (to an almost limitless degree, with music, GIFs, text, and more) photos, images, and videos which can be found in that user’s story (by tapping on their profile picture along the top of the home screen), and which automatically delete themselves after 24 hours. Or do they…
In fact, Instagram stories, once deleted from everyone else’s view, are stored in your Profile’s ‘Archive’. There they’re kept forever, or of course until you delete them. You may well want to delete stories from your archive which you no longer want to see or agree with, or simply as a means of tidying up your Instagram archive and phone’s storage cache.
Alternatively, of course, you may well have uploaded a story prior to finalizing the edits on it. Or someone at a party’s got hold of your phone and posted a story to your Instagram without your permission. Really, whatever your reason for wanting to delete your Instagram story, the process is fairly straightforward, and we’re here to help.
Can I stop stories from saving to my archive?
Yes! Totally! Head to the Instagram app on any mobile or tablet device, then tap your story icon in the top left (you’ll have to have a story currently uploaded for this to work). From here, tap the ‘More’ three dots button in the bottom left (Android), and from the pop-up menu, select ‘Story settings’. Scroll down to the ‘Saving’ sub-menu, and you’ll see that you can now toggle on and off various settings to either enable or disable Instagram saving your stories to your phone and/or to your Instagram archive.
Can I recover an accidentally deleted Instagram story?
Unfortunately not. If you go through the process of deleting one or more of your Instagram stories, the process is irreversible, meaning that you’ll have permanently deleted said stories, and cannot recover them. As such, we highly recommend that you take the time to make certain of your decision, before deleting any Instagram story.
Can I delete multiple Instagram stories at once?
Again, unfortunately not. However, the process is pretty quick and straightforward, so it shouldn’t take you too much time to go through and manually remove and delete any accidentally posted or unwanted stories, whether you’re deleting them from your current story feed, or your story archive.
