How to Post a Story on Instagram: Step-by-Step Guide 2026

To post a story on Instagram, open the app, tap Create at the top of the screen (or swipe right anywhere in your feed), pick Story at the bottom, take a photo or swipe up to grab one from your gallery, then tap Your Story in the bottom left. It stays up for 24 hours. What’s left is deciding who sees it and which stickers get people to react, then sending that audience on to your posts, where a few Instagram likes keep the momentum going.

How do you post an Instagram story, step by step?

The path shifted a little over 2025 and 2026. The old “+” button is now called Create in Instagram’s own help pages, and you pick the format from a selector at the bottom of the screen. Here is the process as Instagram describes it for the iPhone app in September 2026. Android looks almost the same.

1. Open Instagram and tap Create at the top. Shortcut: swipe right anywhere in your feed and the camera opens straight away.
2. At the bottom, scroll the selector to Story (the other choices are Post and Reel).
3. Tap the round button once to take a photo, or hold it down to record video. To use something already on your phone, swipe up and your gallery appears.
4. Dress it up with the tools at the top: Text, Stickers, Draw, Music. To remove an element, drag it to the bin at the bottom of the screen.
5. Tap Your Story in the bottom left to share it with all your followers, or Close Friends to keep it to your shortlist.

Your profile picture then gets a coloured ring at the top of your followers’ feeds. After 24 hours the story disappears, unless you add it to a highlight.

On a computer? The website has no story button, so you need a workaround. It’s all in our guide on how to post an Instagram story from a PC.

Here’s the whole thing filmed on a phone:

Photo, video or text only: which format should you use?

A story doesn’t have to be a photo. The camera has several modes, tucked into the Options menu on the left of the screen:

• Create: a story with no photo or video, just a coloured background with text, a GIF or a question.
• Boomerang: a burst of photos that loops forward and backward.
• Layout: several photos combined into a collage on one screen. Change Grid switches the arrangement.
• Hands-Free: record without keeping your finger on the button, with a countdown if you hold at the start.

On length, the official rule is simple. A video of 60 seconds or less shows as a single clip. Anything longer gets split into several clips in a row, and on iPhone a trimmer at the bottom lets you choose which parts to keep. A photo stays on screen for about 5 seconds.

For framing, aim for vertical 9:16, which is 1080 x 1920 pixels. Instagram also recommends keeping roughly the top 14% and bottom 20% of the image clear: that’s where your name, the reply bar and, on ads, the call to action sit.

How do you add text, music and stickers?

These tools are what separate a story people skip from one they reply to.

Text

Tap the Aa icon, type your message, then change the font with the button at the top and the colour with the dots at the bottom. Press and hold a dot for the full colour picker. Type @ followed by an account name to mention someone: they get a notification and can reshare your story.

Music

The Music button opens the library. You pick the track, the part that plays and, if lyrics are available, how they appear. If the button is missing, update the app first. Instagram says the feature isn’t available to everyone. Our article on Instagram music not being available goes through the usual causes.

Stickers

The smiley square icon opens the sticker tray. Instagram’s September 2026 list includes Add Yours, Captions, Countdown, Time or Weather, Cutouts, Donation, GIF, Hashtag, Link, Location, Mention, Music, Poll, Questions, Quiz and Selfie. Some aren’t offered everywhere: Instagram mentions gaps in Japan and parts of Europe.

The ones that help most are the ones that ask for a tap. A two-option poll takes a second to answer, and every vote counts as an interaction. The Questions sticker fills your inbox with ideas for your next stories. The Link sticker has been open to every account since 2021 and can point to any website.

In this clip, Instagram’s official Creators account shows an editing trick from the Reels camera that also works in Stories.

Who can see your story?

Public account: anyone can see your story. Private account: only the followers you’ve approved. Two settings let you narrow it down.

Your Close Friends list

When you share, the Close Friends button limits the story to a list you build yourself. People on it see a green ring around your photo and a label on the story. So they know they’re on the list, but nobody can ask to be added, and everyone else sees nothing.

Hiding your story from someone

1. Go to your profile and tap the menu in the top right.
2. Under Who can see your content, tap Story, live and location.
3. Choose Hide your story and live videos from specific people, select the accounts, then tap Done.

Faster: in the list of people who viewed your story, tap the options next to a name, then Hide your story. The person isn’t told, and they can still see your profile and posts. To cut them off completely, you have to block them.

What can you do once the story is live?

A story lives for 24 hours, and you keep control of it the whole time. Open it from your profile picture to reach the options.

• See who watched it: swipe up on the story. You get the list of viewers, poll votes and sticker replies.
• Add it to a highlight: the Highlight button at the bottom pins it to your profile past the 24 hours. It’s the only way to keep it visible.
• Delete it: tap More, then Delete. The tricky cases (highlights, archive, shared stories) are covered in our guide on how to delete an Instagram story.

And fixing a typo? Until now you had to delete and post again. In mid-May 2026, social media consultant Matt Navarra spotted an edit button for published stories, being tested with some iPhone users. The warning is blunt: once you start editing, the original version is deleted and its likes, reactions and replies reset to zero.

Why is your story getting so few views?

Stories aren’t really a way to reach strangers anymore. Metricool put it plainly in July 2026: they work best for deepening the connection with people who already follow you. So your view count depends first on the size of your audience and how often it interacts with you. A few mistakes come up again and again:

• Too many stories at once: fifteen frames in a row and thumbs start tapping through to the next account. Plenty of creators suggest staying between two and five a day.
• Nothing for the viewer to do: with no poll, question or reaction, the story sends no signal, and Instagram has less reason to put you at the front of the row.
• An account that only posts stories: stories nurture a relationship, posts and Reels start one. Engagement on your posts is what pushes your story up in your followers’ tray.

If you’re starting out with a small audience, your stories will naturally get few views. The most direct lever is growing the base that watches them, by posting regularly the kind of content that makes people want to follow. A boost in Instagram followers can speed up that start, as long as you keep a posting rhythm behind it.