Instagram Stories have become an incredibly popular way to share quick updates, photos, videos, and more with your followers. However, you may sometimes share things you later regret or that you want to remove for privacy reasons. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to delete and remove both your own Instagram Story posts as well as posts that others have shared or reshared from your profile.
Table of Contents
Deleting Your Own Instagram Story Posts
Deleting your own Instagram Story posts is easy. Here are the steps:
Delete Live Story Posts
- Open the Instagram app and tap on “Your Story” at the top left (where your profile picture is displayed)
- If you have multiple photos/videos in your story, tap through to find the specific one you want to delete
- Tap on the three dots “More” icon at the bottom right of the post
- Tap on “Delete”
- Confirm again by tapping “Delete”
The post will be immediately removed from your live story.
Delete Archived Story Posts
- Go to your profile page
- Tap on the three line “hamburger” menu icon at the top right
- Choose “Archive”
- Select the story post you want to delete
- Tap on the three dots icon at the bottom right
- Tap on “Delete” and confirm by tapping “Delete” again
The post will be deleted from both your archive and your story history.
If someone has reshared one of your story posts to their own story, you can remove it by:
- Going to their profile
- Tapping on the three dots menu icon
- Choosing “Report”
- Selecting “It’s inappropriate” > “I don’t like it”
- Confirming by tapping “Report”
This will send a report to Instagram to have the content removed.
Additionally, if you want to preemptively block your posts from being reshared at all in the future, you can:
- Go to your profile
- Tap the three line menu icon
- Choose “Settings”
- Go to “Privacy” > “Story”
- Toggle off “Allow Resharing to Stories”
Making Your Profile or Stories Private
Making your entire Instagram profile private or just making your stories private are two good ways to limit who can see and reshare your content.
To make your profile private:
- Go to your profile
- Tap the three line menu icon
- Choose “Settings”
- Go to “Privacy” > “Account Privacy”
- Toggle “Private Account” on
This means only your approved followers will see any of your content.
To just make stories private:
- Go to your profile
- Tap the three line menu icon
- Choose “Settings”
- Go to “Privacy > “Story”
- Under “Allow Resharing to Stories”, toggle it off
Additionally under “Story”, you can hide your story from specific people. Both these options prevent unwanted sharing.
Conclusion
It’s easy to delete your own Instagram stories as well as have ones reshared by others removed. Additionally, making your account or stories private limits visibility and resharing to only people you approve. Follow the steps outlined above to take back control over your Instagram story posts.
