Highlights are the little circles under your bio, the Stories you chose to keep on your profile after their twenty four hours were up. At some point you may want to clear them off your profile without losing the content inside them, which is what most people mean when they talk about archiving highlights.
Instagram does not have a single Archive button for a highlight the way it does for a feed post, so the trick is knowing which action actually preserves your Stories and which one throws them away. This guide walks through removing highlights safely, making sure your Stories are backed up first, and rebuilding them later.
Archive, delete and hide are not the same thing
The word archive gets used loosely here, so it helps to be precise. Deleting a highlight removes that highlight collection from your profile. It does not delete the individual Stories inside it, provided your Story archive is switched on, because those Stories live separately in your private archive.
Hiding is a different idea, and Instagram does not offer a switch to hide the whole highlights row from your profile. What you can do is remove highlights you do not want shown and keep only the ones you do. So the real toolkit is: keep your Stories archived, remove highlights you want off your profile, and re add them whenever you like.
- Deleting a highlight removes the collection, not the Stories inside
- Your Stories stay in your private archive if archiving is on
- There is no switch to hide the entire highlights row
- The practical move is remove now, re add later from your archive
Turn on your Story archive first
Before you remove anything, make sure your Story archive is on, because it is what keeps your expired Stories safe and private. Go to your profile, open the menu, and in Settings and privacy look under the archiving option to confirm Save to archive is enabled. With it on, every Story you post is quietly saved to your private archive after it expires.
This matters because your highlights are built from Stories. If archiving is on, removing a highlight is completely reversible, since the source Stories are sitting in your archive ready to be added back. If it is off, you lose the safety net, so switch it on and leave it on.
- Profile, then the menu, then Settings and privacy
- Find the archiving setting and enable Save to archive
- Expired Stories then save privately, visible only to you
- With it on, removing a highlight is fully reversible
Remove a highlight from your profile
To take a highlight off your profile, go to your profile and press and hold the highlight circle you want to remove. A menu appears with the option to delete or edit that highlight. Choosing to delete removes the collection from your profile immediately.
If archiving is on, the Stories that made up that highlight remain in your archive, so nothing is truly lost. If you only want to trim a highlight rather than remove it, choose edit instead and untick the individual Stories you want gone, which keeps the highlight but slims it down.
- Profile, then press and hold the highlight circle
- Choose delete to remove the whole collection from your profile
- Source Stories stay in your archive when archiving is on
- Choose edit instead to remove only some Stories from a highlight
Rebuild or re add highlights later
Because the content lives in your archive, you can rebuild highlights whenever you want. Open your Story archive from your profile menu, find the Stories you saved, and use the highlight option to add them to a new or existing highlight. It is the same content, back on your profile, on your terms.
This is what makes removing highlights low risk once archiving is on. You are not making a permanent decision, you are just curating what shows on your profile today, and you can change your mind tomorrow without having lost a thing.
- Open your Story archive from the profile menu
- Select saved Stories and add them to a highlight
- Rebuild an old highlight or start a fresh one
- Nothing is permanent while your archive holds the source Stories
Keeping your highlights working for you
Highlights are prime profile real estate, the first thing a visitor taps after your bio, so it is worth curating them rather than letting them pile up. Removing stale highlights and keeping a tight, current set makes your profile read as active and intentional, which is exactly the impression that turns a profile visit into a follow.
The other half of that equation is the views your Stories and highlights actually get, because a highlight with visible engagement pulls more taps than one that looks ignored. Keeping your Stories seen is what keeps your highlights worth having on the profile in the first place.
- Curate highlights; they are the first thing visitors tap
- A tight, current set reads as active and intentional
- Remove stale highlights, keep the ones that still represent you
- Visible engagement makes highlights pull more taps
Frequently asked questions
Read next: How to Blow Up on Instagram: Grow Fast, Honestly (2026). For more, browse our Instagram guides or all posts by Eliza Rose.
