Viewing Instagram Stories: Essential Tips and Tricks

The primary place where you can find stories to view is the row of user profile pictures at the top of the home feed. There you can check out stories from people you follow on Instagram along with your own story. Just tap a profile picture to see the corresponding user’s story.

You can also go to the Explore tab (the one with the magnifying glass icon) and tap any of the profile pictures in the row right below the search bar for featured stories from users you don’t follow.

If you want to view a particular user’s story, you can go directly to their profile and then tap their profile picture.

When viewing stories, they automatically play from one photo or video to the next.

However, you can choose to skip to the next photo or video by tapping on the middle or right of the screen, or skip to the previous photo or video by tapping on the left of the screen.

When viewing stories from the top row in the home feed or Explore tab, they automatically play from one photo or video to the next after one user’s story has finished playing.

But you can easily skip to the next user’s story by swiping left, or skip to the previous user’s story by swiping right.

When viewing a story, you can of course exit the story by tapping the “x” at the top right of the screen. But there’s actually a more intuitive way of exiting a story: Just swipe down on the screen.

Unlike with regular Instagram photos and videos, you can’t leave comments on stories. However, you can still comment, that is, remark, on a photo or video in a story by replying with a direct private message to the person who shared the story.

Just tap Send Message at the bottom left of the photo or video you’d like to reply to, type your message, and then tap Send.

Stories automatically play from one photo or video to the next, but you can pause a photo or video simply by tapping and holding on the screen. This is useful if, say, you want to take a longer look at a certain detail or need more time to read the accompanying caption.

You can take a screenshot of a photo or video in a story the same way you would take a screenshot of anything else on iOS: Just press the home and sleep buttons of your iOS device.

If you see See More at the bottom of a photo or video in a story, this means that the photo or video has an accompanying link. Tap See More to view the link in Instagram’s in-app browser.

While viewing stories from people you follow, you might find that one user’s story is just not interesting enough to warrant your attention and that another user’s story tends to be rather annoying. Well, in such cases, you can opt to mute those users’ stories.

To mute the story of someone you follow, tap their profile picture in the home feed’s top row and then tap Mute [username]’s Story.

If you see a photo or video in someone’s story that you think is spam, inappropriate, offensive, or otherwise against Instagram’s posting guidelines, you can report it for Instagram’s inspection by tapping the ellipsis at the bottom right of the screen, tapping Report, and then following the onscreen instructions.

While viewing someone’s story, you can visit the user’s Instagram profile directly from the story by tapping their username at the top left of the screen.

Sometimes users mention other users in their stories. If you see a @username with an underline in a photo or video in a story, you can tap it and then tap the pop-up link to go straight to the mentioned user’s Instagram profile.

Sometimes stories include location stickers. If you see one, you can tap it and then tap the pop-up link to visit the Instagram page for the location, which includes a map of the location and photos and videos tagged with it.

Within the 24-hour lifespan of each of the photos and videos you share to it, your story is visible to anyone if your account is public or only to your approved followers if your account is private. Either way, you can see who’s seen the photos and videos in your story.

Just open your story and then tap the indication with the eye icon at the bottom of the screen. You can then see the number of people who have seen the current photo or video and scroll through a list of their names. You can also swipe left or right to do the same with the next or previous photo or video.

Keep in mind that the photos and videos in your story are automatically deleted 24 hours after they’re shared. But if you want to delete any of them ahead of its expiration, you can do so by tapping the ellipsis at the bottom right of the photo or video you’d like to delete, tapping Delete, and then tapping Delete to confirm.

To reiterate: The photos and videos that you’ve shared in your story are set to automatically disappear after 24 hours. Most of the time, what you probably share in your story is not worth saving, which is just as well for the feature’s ephemeral nature. But there might be the occasional photo or video that for some reason you want to keep.

To that end, you just have to tap the ellipsis at the bottom right of the photo or video you’d like to save, tap Save, and then tap Save Photo/Video. It will then be saved to your device’s camera roll.

If you’ve shared multiple photos and videos to your story, instead of saving each of them individually, you can save them all to your device as a single video.

To do that, just open your story, tap the ellipsis at the bottom right of any photo or video, tap Save, and then tap Save Story. A video that shows the photos and videos in your story one after the other will then be saved to your device’s camera roll.

You can also choose to share a photo or video from your story as a regular Instagram post to give it life beyond the 24 hours it is afforded by Instagram Stories. Just tap the ellipsis at the bottom right of the photo or video you’d like to share to your feed, tap Share as Post, and then go through the usual process of sharing a regular Instagram photo or video.

If you have any questions, remarks, or suggestions, feel free to enter them in the comments section below.