How to Change Real-Time on an Instagram Story

Ever tried to post an Instagram Story of your morning coffee in the evening and added the time sticker, only for it to read 9:30 PM? It can ruin the moment. Changing the real-time display on your Instagram Story is a clever little hack that lets you take full control of your content's narrative, whether you're posting a throwback or simply catching up on your day. This guide will walk you through the simplest methods to set any time you want on your photos and videos, giving you the creative freedom to tell your story on your schedule.

How Does the Instagram Time Sticker Actually Work?

Before we learn how to modify it, let's understand what the time sticker does by default. When you add the time sticker to a Story, Instagram automatically pulls the current time directly from your device’s clock. If you post a photo at 3:15 PM, the sticker will display "3:15 PM." If you upload a pre-recorded video, the sticker dynamically changes to reflect the timecode within the video itself. This is an important distinction and the secret to one of our main workarounds.

Most of the time, this default behavior is exactly what you want - it provides real-time context. But what if you're a content creator, social media manager, or business owner trying to craft a specific narrative? You might want to change the time for several reasons:

• Posting content from earlier in the day. You filmed a great "get ready with me" video this morning but didn't have time to edit and post it until late at night.
• Creating a "throwback" post. You want to share a fun memory from yesterday and have the timestamp reflect when it actually happened.
• Aesthetic purposes. Maybe your Story has a midnight, moody vibe, but it's only 2:00 in the afternoon. A custom timestamp completes the look.
• Building a sequential narrative. You can post a full day's worth of content at once, with each Story frame individually time-stamped to show "9:00 AM," "12:30 PM," "5:00 PM," and so on.

Whatever your reason, the goal is the same: to make the time sticker show what you want it to show, not what your phone dictates. Let’s get into the step-by-step methods to make that happen.

Method 1: The Screen Recording Trick (Top Recommended Way)

This is by far the safest, most reliable, and most popular method for customizing the time on an Instagram Story. It works perfectly for setting a custom time on a video, and with one extra step, you can adapt it for photos too. The basic idea is to create a video where the on-screen clock shows the time you want, and then overlay Instagram's time sticker on top of that video.

Here’s exactly how to do it.

Step 1: Get Your Phone's Clock Ready

Open the native Clock app on your iPhone or Android device. Navigate to the "Stopwatch" section. This gives you a clean, digital display of a running clock that’s perfect for our purposes. Don’t start it yet! Just have it open and ready to go.

Step 2: Start a Screen Recording

Now, you need to record your screen. Here's how to do it on different devices:

• On iPhone: Swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to open the Control Center. Tap the circular "Screen Recording" button. A 3-second countdown will start before the recording begins.
• On Android: Swipe down from the top of your screen to open the Quick Settings panel. Find and tap the "Screen Recorder" or "Screen Record" tile. You may need to edit your panel to add this button if it's not visible.

Once the recording starts, quickly navigate back to your Clock app where the stopwatch is waiting.

Step 3: Run the Clock and Record

Tap the "Start" button on your stopwatch. Let it run until it reaches the time you want to display in your Story. For example, if you want your sticker to say "10:15 AM," let the stopwatch run past ten minutes and fifteen seconds. For more authenticity, you could even set a timer to count down from the exact time you want.

When you have the time you need recorded, stop the screen recording. The video will be automatically saved to your phone's camera roll or gallery.

Step 4: Bring Your Recording into Instagram Stories

Open Instagram and swipe right to open the Story creation screen. Tap the gallery icon in the bottom-left corner and select your freshly made screen recording of the clock.

Step 5: Add the Time Sticker

With your video loaded in the Story editor, tap the sticker icon at the top of your screen (the square smiley face). Select the digital time sticker. Do not use the analog clock, as this trick won’t work with it.

You'll notice that the time sticker is now showing the time from your video recording, not the current real-time. It's working! You can tap the sticker to cycle through its different visual styles until you find one you like.

Step 6: Pinpoint the Exact Time You Want

Your screen recording is probably longer than you need. To select the exact moment, use the video timeline scrubber at the bottom of the screen. Drag it left or right until the time sticker in the preview displays the precise minute and second you want. You now have a short video clip with a fully customized timestamp that you can post directly to your Story.

How to Adapt This for a Photo

What if you want a fake time on a still image, not a video? You'll use the same screen recording trick but add a screenshot into the mix.

1. Follow all the steps above to get your screen-recorded clock video into the Instagram Story editor with the custom time sticker on it.
2. Pause the video on the exact time you want to capture.
3. Take a screenshot of your entire phone screen.
4. Now, back out of that Story draft (you can discard it). Start a new Story.
5. Select the screenshot you just took from your camera roll.
6. Use your fingers to pinch and zoom, effectively cropping out the phone's top status bar and bottom navigation bars, leaving just the clock image with your custom time sticker.
7. Now, here's the clever part: From here, you can go back to the sticker drawer and add your actual photo on top of this background. Choose the image sticker (the one that looks like a photo with a plus sign). Select the real photo you want to post.
8. Position your photo so that it doesn't cover your custom time. You've essentially created a background layer with the fake time, then placed your real content on top.

It's a few extra steps, but it's a very effective workaround that gives you full control.

Method 2: Manually Change Your Phone's Time (The "Use With Caution" Method)

Another way to change the Instagram time sticker is to change the time on your phone itself. While this method sounds direct, it comes with some serious caveats and isn't generally recommended unless you're in a pinch.

Instagram's time sticker simply pulls its data from your device's date and time settings. By manually changing those settings, you can fool Instagram - along with every other app on your phone.

Instructions for iOS:

1. Go to Settings >, General >, Date &, Time.
2. Toggle off "Set Automatically."
3. Tap the current date and time displayed in blue.
4. Adjust your calendar and clock to your desired date and time for the Story post.
5. Open Instagram, create your Story with the time sticker, publish it.

Instructions for Android:

1. Go to Settings >, System >, Date &, Time (this path may vary slightly by device manufacturer).
2. Toggle off "Use network-provided time" or "Set time automatically."
3. Manually tap to set a new date and time.
4. Open Instagram, add the time sticker to your Story, and share it.

Why You Should Be Extremely Careful with This Method

Changing your device's system time can wreak havoc on other applications and services. Here's what can go wrong:

• Message Timestamps: iMessage, WhatsApp, and other messaging apps might display incorrect timestamps, causing confusion in your conversations.
• Calendar Alerts &, Reminders: Your calendar alerts for meetings and appointments will be completely thrown off course.
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Time-based authenticators used for logging into secure accounts (like Google Authenticator or your bank app) rely on an accurate system clock to generate codes. Changing the time can make it impossible to use them when you need to sign in somewhere new or verify your identity.
• General App Misbehavior: Many applications use your phone's clock for licensing, notifications, and syncing data to the cloud. You might notice odd bugs, frequent crashing, or data that just doesn't seem to load.

If you absolutely must use this method, the golden rule is simple: change the time back to "Set Automatically" immediately after you have published your Story. Don't leave your phone on an incorrect setting, or you're probably going to face a long line of new headaches you didn't even expect. When compared with the screen recording method, this is just not worth the potential downsides. Do yourself a favor and go with method one.

Final Thoughts

Manipulating the time on an Instagram Story sticker opens up a world of creative possibilities, letting you control your content's narrative with precision. Whether you use the safe and reliable screen recording method to capture a specific moment or decide to brave the risks of changing your phone's system clock, you now have the tools to make your Stories more dynamic and strategically timed.

To get the timing right for our audience every time, we rely on having a clear content calendar. Using a modern scheduling tool like Postbase helps us visually plan all of our Stories, Reels, and videos in one place so we know exactly when our content goes live, whether we're faking the timestamp or not. A bird's-eye view of our entire strategy lets us focus more of our energy on the creative stuff without ever worrying about missing an optimal posting time.