Instagram, the popular photo and video-sharing platform owned by Meta, is reportedly experimenting with a fresh feature known as “Unseen Story Highlights.” This new addition aims to help users catch up on content from friends or connections they may have overlooked. As its name suggests, the feature will display stories that a user has not yet viewed, ensuring they don’t miss updates from their mutual followers.
According to a report from TechCrunch, these Unseen Story Highlights are positioned strategically within the app. They appear at the end of the regular Stories section, separated into their own dedicated area located at the top of the application interface.
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This thoughtful placement ensures that users can easily access the unseen stories without disrupting their usual browsing experience. By introducing this feature, Instagram appears to be enhancing engagement and connection between users by making sure no story gets left unseen.
#Instagram is testing a new Highlights Story feature that displays highlights from profiles you follow as Stories. It seems to work as a way to catch up if you missed the original content
🔗 Follow my WhatsApp Channel for more updates: https://t.co/0JyLtIkvM8 pic.twitter.com/1TXbB4G4ub
— Ahmed Ghanem (@ahmedghanem) December 17, 2024
A Meta spokesperson in a statement said, “We’re always working on new ways to help people connect in Stories and are testing bringing recent Highlights to the end of the tray with a small group of people.”
Why Was This Needed?
With Instagram being flooded by random Reels and sponsored posts, this new feature offers a practical way for users to stay updated on their friends’ latest activities. It simplifies the process of catching up with meaningful content, making it easier to focus on updates that matter most.
For clarity, the unseen Story Highlights feature doesn’t include regular Stories that disappear after 24 hours. Instead, it focuses exclusively on Story Highlights—collections of Stories that users have intentionally saved on their profiles.
According to Instagram’s statement to TechCrunch, this section will display unseen Story Highlights from the past week. However, there’s a catch: the feature will only appear after you’ve viewed all the current Stories. This means that users with a large following list who rarely reach the end of their Stories queue might not encounter the unseen Story Highlights section at all.
