How to Post a Long Story on Instagram

You have a fantastic story to tell, but Instagram’s short Story limit feels like it's holding you back. Sharing anything longer than a one-minute video or a few quick thoughts often means sacrificing detail and depth. This guide breaks down several methods for posting longer, more immersive stories, from seamlessly splitting videos to creating engaging tap-through series that keep your audience captivated.

It’s Simpler Than You Think: The 60-Second Story Clip

Before diving into complex workarounds, it’s important to know that Instagram’s native functionality has improved. A few years ago, you were stuck with 15-second clips, making any long-form content choppy and difficult to watch. Fortunately, Instagram now allows you to upload a video up to 60 seconds long, and it will post as one single, continuous Story segment. There's no longer an automatic, jarring split every 15 seconds within that first minute.

This is now the easiest way to post moderately long content. If you have a video that’s 45 or 60 seconds, you don’t need any special apps or tedious editing. Simply upload it from your camera roll, and Instagram handles the rest.

How to do it:

1. Open the Instagram app and swipe right to open the Story camera.
2. Swipe up or tap the gallery icon in the bottom-left corner to access your camera roll.
3. Select the video you want to post (as long as it's 60 seconds or less).
4. Add any text, stickers, or music you'd like.
5. Tap "Your Story" to post it.

This approach is perfect for sharing shorter thoughts, quick tutorials, product demonstrations, or behind-the-scenes clips without dealing with multiple uploads.

Beyond 60 Seconds: How to Split Longer Videos Seamlessly

What happens when your story is longer than a minute? A three-minute testimonial compilation or a five-minute DIY guide simply won’t fit into a single segment. The solution is to split a longer video into multiple 60-second clips and upload them in sequence. This makes it look like one continuous story that viewers can tap through. While you could do this by manually timing and trimming clips, there are much more efficient ways to get it done.

Method 1: Using Third-Party Apps (The Easiest Way)

For anyone who regularly creates long-form video content, a story-splitting app is a game-changer. These apps are purpose-built to take a long video file and automatically chop it into perfectly timed segments for Instagram Stories, saving you an incredible amount of time and effort.

Popular and reliable apps for this include:

• CutStory (iOS): A clean and straightforward app that slices videos into segments for Instagram, Facebook, and more. It’s incredibly intuitive and maintains video quality.
• Story Cutter (Android): This app performs a similar function for Android users, allowing you to specify the length of each clip. It's great for trimming longer mobile videos.
• InShot (iOS & Android): While InShot is a full-featured video editor, its trimming tools are excellent for this task. You can precisely set your cuts and export each segment individually, giving you more creative control.

A General Step-by-Step Process with Splitter Apps:

1. Download and open your chosen video splitter app.
2. Import the long video from your camera roll.
3. Select the platform you're splitting it for (in this case, Instagram Stories). The app will automatically set the segment length to 60 seconds.
4. Let the app process and split the video. It will save the individual clips to your phone’s photo library, numbered in the correct order.
5. Open Instagram, go to your Stories, and upload the clips one by one in sequence.

The main advantage here is speed and precision. The cuts are perfect every time, removing any possibility of awkwardly cutting someone off mid-sentence.

Method 2: Splitting Videos Manually (The Free, DIY Option)

Don't want to download another app? You can still split your videos using the built-in editing tools on your phone. This method requires a bit more hands-on work, but it's free and just as effective if you have a little patience.

For iPhone Users (Using the Photos App):

1. Open the Photos app and find your long video.
2. Tap "Edit" in the top-right corner.
3. You'll see a timeline of your video at the bottom. Drag the yellow handles at the beginning and end to trim the video down to the first 60 seconds.
4. Tap "Done," and when prompted, select "Save Video as New Clip." This is very important - you don't want to overwrite your original video.
5. Repeat the process. Open the original long video file again, tap "Edit," and this time, trim it from the 60-second mark to the 120-second mark (or 2-minute mark).
6. Continue this process until you have sectioned out the entire video into 60-second increments, always saving each part as a "New Clip."

For Android Users (Using Google Photos or a Built-in Editor):

The process is similar on most Android devices, often through the Google Photos app or the device's default Gallery app.

1. Open your video in Google Photos or your Gallery app.
2. Tap the "Edit" button. This will usually bring up a timeline view of your video.
3. Drag the handles on the timeline to select the first 60-second segment.
4. Find the option to "Save a copy" or "Export frame." This ensures you're creating a new file without altering the original.
5. Go back to your original video and repeat the process, selecting the next 60-second chunk until your entire video is split.

Pro Tip: When splitting manually, try to make your cuts at natural pauses in speech, between sentences, or during a change in action. This helps make the transitions between Story clips feel much smoother and less abrupt for the viewer.

Long-Form Storytelling Without Video: The Text & Image Method

Long stories aren’t just about video. You can tell a deep, compelling story using a series of text and image slides that your followers can tap through at their own pace. This is a powerful format for repurposing a blog post, a set of tips, a customer review, or a step-by-step guide. Think of it as creating a mini-presentation or a slideshow. Each tap reveals the next part of the story, giving you complete control over the pacing of your narrative.

How to create a tap-through text story:

1. Design a Consistent Template: Use an app like Canva or even Instagram’s "Create Mode" to design your story slides. To make it feel like a single piece of content, use the same background color, fonts, and brand elements on every slide.
2. Keep Each Slide Simple: Don’t overload any single slide with text. Stick to one main idea or a few short sentences per screen. This makes it easy for people to read quickly before tapping to the next part.
3. Number Your Slides: Add a small text overlay in the corner like "1/8," "2/8," etc. This guides your viewers, lets them know how long the story is, and encourages them to tap all the way to the end.
4. Break It Up with Visuals: A text-only story can get visually boring. Mix in relevant photos, GIFs, or even short video clips between text slides to keep things dynamic and hold your audience’s attention.

This method is excellent for educational content, sharing personal stories, or breaking down complex topics in a digestible format.

Best Practices for Engaging Long Stories

Simply posting a bunch of sequential clips isn’t enough. To make your long story effective and prevent people from swiping away, you need to think a little more strategically.

1. Start with a Powerful Hook

The first 3-5 seconds of your very first slide are the most important. You need to give viewers a compelling reason to stick around. You can do this by:

• Asking a thought-provoking question.
• Showing the most visually exciting moment of your story first.
• Clearly stating the topic or what viewers will learn.

2. Guide Your Viewers

No one likes feeling lost. A long tale with no end feels overwhelming. Use text overlays like "Keep swiping for part 2," "Tutorial: Step 1/5," or simply number your slides. This manages expectations and makes viewers feel like they're making progress. Let them know there is a narrative thread they can follow.

3. Use Interactive Stickers to Boost Engagement

A long flow of content can become passive. Sprinkle interactive stickers like polls, quizzes, sliders, and question boxes throughout your Story sequence. Asking a question halfway through a tutorial or running a poll at the end of a long video re-engages your audience and encourages them to actively participate instead of just watching.

4. End with a Clear Call to Action (CTA)

By the time a viewer reaches a final slide or clip, they’re invested. This is the optimal time to encourage more involvement. Prompt a reaction by providing a clear invitation to do something else. What's the goal of your story? Encourage sales, bring someone to your website, or simply foster a deeper connection. Add a link sticker and prompt people to "swipe up," ask them to send you a DM with their thoughts, or tell them to check out a related post in your feed.

5. Save It to Your Highlights for Evergreen Value

You put a lot of work into creating your magnificent multi-part story! Don't let all that effort vanish after 24 hours. You can give your content much more visibility by combining related stories into a "Highlight" on your Instagram profile. Themed Highlights can cover topics like "Tutorials," "FAQs," or "Behind the Scenes." They provide evergreen answers and value to new visitors, plus build a library of useful information about you or your brand. These Highlights are now even more vital to your bio because they provide a place that users can return to again and again. A good collection of Highlights helps reinforce your story by putting information and resources in one convenient space.

Final Thoughts

Posting a long story on Instagram is about adopting a more strategic creator’s mindset. It’s much more than just a simple video edit, it requires careful planning to align with your goals and your audience’s interests. By using longer, multi-part formats, you can transform standard content into engaging narratives that create a deeper connection with your viewers. The result is an impactful story that not only resonates with your followers but also helps you achieve your objectives.

We know that planning and preparing these detailed, multi-part stories can be tricky and interfere with a brand's normal routine. Staying organized and scheduling in advance is key to keeping your message consistent and avoiding chaos. Using a visual content publishing tool helps keep your brand account organized. We use Postbase for planning and scheduling, which turns managing stories into a simple calendar process. It helps our content strategy and execution stay on track, ensuring our Stories are organized and published at the right time and in the right order.