How to Use Instagram's New Story Archives Map

Instagram stories have a measly 24-hour lifespan—at least publicly. But the app actually keeps a private archive of all your old story posts that you can access at any time and resurrect them as profile “Highlights.” Digging through your entire story post archive to dredge up highlights can be a pain, but Instagram has a new location-based filter that shows all your past location-tagged posts on a single map screen.

Instagram’s new stories map is part of the latest app update, available on iOS and Android. Once your app updates, here’s how to find your stories map:

Credit: Brendan Hesse

1. Open Instagram and go to your profile.

2. Tap the three-lined hamburger menu icon.

3. Select “Archive” to view your story post history. This menu has three tabs: All posts (listed chronologically), calendar view (lets you view posts by a specific date), and a location tab.

4. Tap the location tab to see a map of where you have made your story posts. (The pinned locations are where you tagged the photo or video, not the original photo’s metadata.)

While in the location tab, you can pinch the screen to zoom out on the map, spread to zoom in, and tap pins on the map to see your story posts. The zoom gestures help when you have an abundance of story posts taken in a specific location and need to get a more precise look.

You can also use the location view to create new story highlights based on location:

1. Tap a location on the map to open the story post(s) you want to add.

2. Select the “Highlight” icon from the bottom menu.

3. Edit the highlight’s name.

4. Tap “Add” to add all the photos and videos to the highlight collection and post it to your profile.

If you can’t find a story post on the map, it’s likely you didn’t tag a location. Thankfully, posts without location tags still show up in the chronological and calendar tabs, where you can review and add them to highlights collections.

[How-To Geek]