If You Hide Your Story on Instagram Can They See Your Highlights – Find Out the Truth
David Morey 
If You Hide Your Story on Instagram Can They See Your Highlights
Navigating the social media landscape can often feel like you’re trying to decode a complex puzzle. One question that has been popping up lately is: If you hide your story on Instagram, can they see your highlights? The simple answer is yes, they can.
Let me break it down for you. When you hide your Instagram story from someone, it doesn’t mean they’re blocked from viewing all of your content. It only means they won’t be able to see new stories you post after hiding them. So if those same images or videos are added to your highlights section — a feature that allows users to permanently display selected stories on their profile — those individuals will still have access to view them.
But let’s delve a bit deeper into the specifics of how this works and why it might matter in managing your online presence. There’s more to understanding social media dynamics than meets the eye. While it may seem contradictory at first glance, there’s actually a logical reason behind why Instagram designed its features this way.
Understanding Instagram’s Privacy Features
Instagram, with its visually appealing interface and user-friendly features, has become a popular social platform. Yet at times, the line between sharing and oversharing can blur. That’s where Instagram’s privacy features come into play.
Whether it’s your Story or Highlights, you have control over who sees what. When it comes to Stories, there’s an option to hide them from certain followers. Simply go to settings, navigate to the privacy section and select ‘story’. Here you’ll find the option to hide your story from anyone you choose.
But what about Highlights? They’re essentially archived stories that are visible on your profile for more than 24 hours. So naturally, one might wonder if hiding a story would also mean it disappears from Highlights as well.
Well here’s the scoop: If you’ve hidden a story from someone, they won’t be able to see it in your Highlights either! Even though these highlights are technically public and available for longer periods of time on your profile.
Now let me throw in some numbers for context:
- Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users
- Half of those use Stories every day
- One-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses
How Instagram Stories Work
I’m sure you’ve noticed that little rainbow-ringed circle hovering at the top left corner of your Instagram feed. Those are what we call Instagram Stories, a feature that truly revolutionized the way users share and consume content on this popular platform.
Launched back in 2016, Instagram Stories lets users post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours. It’s like Snapchat, but it’s integrated directly into Instagram. The ephemeral nature of Stories makes them perfect for sharing moments too precious or spontaneous to be confined in the more formal landscape of regular posts.
Each Story you create gets added to your personal Story reel which followers can access by tapping on your profile picture. You’ll notice two main sections when viewing someone’s story: one is the actual content (the photo or video), and the other is an overlay with user info and engagement options like direct message responses or reaction emojis.
But here’s where it gets interesting; even though a Story disappears from your feed after 24 hours, you can save it as a Highlight on your profile page. These Highlights remain visible until you choose to remove them, allowing followers who missed your original Story to catch up later on.
It’s important to note that privacy settings do apply to Stories just as they do for regular posts. If your account is set to private, only those who follow you can see your stories and highlights. However, if it’s public anyone can view them.
Ultimately, understanding how these elements – stories, highlights, and privacy settings – interact will help you navigate questions about visibility on Instagram with ease.
