How to Delete Highlights on Instagram

Your Instagram Highlights sit right below your bio, acting as a curated trailer for your entire profile. But what happens when that trailer features outdated promotions, old branding, or content that no longer fits your vibe? This guide will walk you through exactly how to delete an entire Highlight, selectively remove individual stories from a Highlight, and strategically think about what should - and shouldn't - live on your profile's front page.

Why Your Instagram Highlights Are More Important Than You Think

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Your Instagram Highlights are prime real estate. They are one of the first things a new visitor sees, making them a powerful tool for storytelling, brand building, and guiding followers to important information. Think of them as an organized, permanent collection of your best moments, unlike the 24-hour lifespan of regular Stories.

Keeping them updated is essential for a few key reasons:

• Making a Strong First Impression: For new followers, your Highlights are a quick-start guide to who you are, what you do, and what you care about. Old, irrelevant Highlights can send a messy or confusing message.
• Maintaining Brand Consistency: As your brand, business, or personal style evolves, your profile should, too. Deleting Highlights that reflect old logos, services, or aesthetics keeps your presence cohesive and current.
• Avoiding Follower Confusion: Nothing confuses a potential customer more than a Highlight promoting a sale that ended six months ago or featuring a product you no longer sell. Clean, accurate Highlights build trust and clarity.

Treating your Highlights like a mini-website navigation bar will change how you approach them. Regular cleanups aren't just about deleting old content, they're about refining your message and ensuring your profile is working as hard as it can for you.

How to Delete an Entire Instagram Highlight (The Quick Method)

Sometimes a Highlight needs to go entirely. Maybe it was for a temporary event, a past collaboration, or it just doesn't fit your strategy anymore. Deleting the entire Highlight circle from your profile is fast and simple.

Here's how to do it step-by-step:

1. Navigate to your Instagram profile page where your bio and grid are visible.
2. Locate the Highlight you want to remove.
3. Long-press (tap and hold your finger) on the Highlight cover. A menu will pop up from the bottom of the screen.
4. In the menu, tap on Delete Highlight.
5. Instagram will ask for confirmation to prevent accidental deletions. The pop-up will say, "Delete Highlight? You will still be able to view these stories in your archive." Tap the red Delete text to confirm.

That's it. The Highlight and its cover image will immediately disappear from your profile. It's important to note an important detail from Instagram's confirmation message: the stories themselves are not gone forever. They are safely stored in your Instagram Story Archive, so you can always reuse them later if you wish.

How to Remove Specific Stories from a Highlight (Without Deleting the Whole Thing)

Often, you don't need to get rid of an entire Highlight, you just need to prune it. Perhaps a specific slide in your "FAQs" Highlight is outdated, or you want to curate your "Portfolio" Highlight to only show your most recent work. This surgical approach keeps the valuable parts of your Highlight intact while removing what's no longer relevant.

There are two easy ways to do this.

Method 1: Removing One Story at a Time

This method is perfect if you only need to remove one or two stories. It's quick and lets you do it while you're viewing the content.

1. Tap on the Highlight that contains the story you want to remove.
2. Watch or tap through the stories until you land on the one you want to delete.
3. In the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap the More icon (it looks like three dots).
4. A menu will appear. Select Remove from Highlight.
5. A confirmation message will appear: "Story Removed from Highlight." The story will vanish from the collection, but just like before, it remains in your archive.

You can repeat this process for any other stories within the same Highlight.

Method 2: The Multi-Story Removal Trick

If you need to remove several stories at once, the first method can be a bit tedious. Editing the Highlight directly gives you a much better overview and allows for bulk removal.

1. On your profile page, long-press the Highlight you want to edit.
2. From the pop-up menu, select Edit Highlight.
3. This will open a new screen where you can change the Highlight's name and cover photo. Notice the "Stories" and "Selected" tabs at the top. You'll automatically land on the Selected section.
4. Here, you'll see a grid of all the stories currently in this Highlight, each with a blue checkmark.
5. Simply tap to uncheck any of the stories you wish to remove. They will move from the "Selected" section back into your general archive.
6. Once you've finished unselecting the stories, tap Done in the top-right corner.

This method is far more efficient for bigger curation jobs, giving you a bird's-eye view of everything in your Highlight at once.

Common Questions About Managing Instagram Highlights

Deleting and editing Highlights can bring up a few worries, especially about losing content permanently. Let's clear up some of the most common questions.

Does deleting a Highlight also delete the Stories from my archive?

A firm no. Your Instagram Story Archive is the master library of every story you've ever posted (as long as you have the "Save Story to Archive" setting enabled). Highlights are just curated playlists pointing to content in that library. When you delete a Highlight or remove a story from a Highlight, you're only deleting the playlist, not the songs themselves. All your original stories remain safe and sound in your archive.

How do I access my Story Archive?

You can view your archived stories anytime. Here's where to find them:

• Go to your profile page.
• Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner.
• Select Archive.
• At the top, you'll see a dropdown menu. Make sure it's set to "Stories Archive" (and not "Posts Archive" or "Live Archive").

What if I want to delete a Story permanently?

If you want a story gone forever - from your archive, from any Highlights it was in, completely erased - you must delete it from the Story Archive itself. Be very sure about this, as this action is irreversible.

1. Go to your Story Archive following the steps above.
2. Find the story you want to delete permanently.
3. Tap on it to view it full-screen.
4. Tap the More (three dots) icon at the bottom right.
5. Select Delete, and confirm your choice. This will remove it from Instagram entirely.

Can I add a Story back to a Highlight after removing it?

Yes, absolutely. To add a story back, simply long-press on the Highlight you want to add it to, tap Edit Highlight, switch to the Stories tab, find the archived story you want to re-add, tap to select it, and then tap Done. Your story will reappear in the collection.

Beyond Deleting: A Smarter Approach to Your Highlights Strategy

Instead of randomly deleting Highlights when you feel like it, take a proactive approach by conducting a quarterly "Highlight Audit." Look at the first 5-6 Highlight circles on your profile (the ones visible without scrolling) and ask yourself some simple questions:

• Is This Relevant? Does this Highlight offer immediate value to someone visiting my profile for the first time today?
• Is This Accurate? Is the information here - like prices, links, team members, or services - still correct?
• Does This Reflect My Brand? Do the aesthetics, tone, and content align with my current brand standards?
• Is There a Better Way to Organize This? Could I merge two similar Highlights or split a bloated one into more specific categories?

Thinking strategically will elevate your Highlights from a messy content graveyard to a powerful branding tool. Consider creating evergreen categories that will serve your audience for a long time.

Ideas for Evergreen Highlight Categories:

• For Businesses: "FAQs," "Services," "Reviews," "How it Works," "Team."
• For Creators: "About Me," "My Gear," "Portfolio," "Press," "Q&As."
• For E-commerce: "New In," "Best Sellers," "Sizing," "Care Tips," "User-Generated Content."

Final Thoughts

Keeping your Instagram profile clean, current, and professional is an ongoing process, and your Highlights are a huge part of that. Now you know how to easily delete entire Highlight circles, surgically remove individual stories, and manage your archive to keep everything perfectly curated. Treat your Highlights like the valuable front-page real estate they are, and your profile will be much more effective.

Maintaining all that fresh social media content - whether you're auditing old Highlights or scheduling new posts - can be a constant battle against the clock. When we started building our tools, one big goal was to make that process feel less chaotic. We designed Postbase around a clean, visual calendar, because planning content should be inspiring, not overwhelming. If you want a simpler way to see your entire strategy for Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms all in one place, you'll feel right at home with our approach.