How to Reorder Instagram Story Highlights (There Is No

Updated September 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Instagram gives you no way to drag Highlights into position. They sort by whichever was updated most recently, which is also the lever you use to control the order. Here is the exact method, why you have to work backwards, and what actually belongs in the first three slots.

The short answer

This is one of the most searched Instagram questions and the answer is genuinely unintuitive, because the mechanism is a side effect rather than a feature. Once you know that recency drives order, controlling it becomes straightforward.

Why it matters more than it sounds

The Highlight bar sits directly under the bio and above the grid. For a new visitor deciding whether to follow or enquire, it is frequently the first thing they interact with — and most accounts have it filled with an old event, a holiday and something labeled with an emoji.

The method

1. Open your profile and find the Highlight you want moved
2. Tap and hold it, then choose Edit Highlight
3. Open the Stories tab, which shows your archive
4. Select at least one Story — it can be one already in the Highlight
5. Tap Done or Save
6. The Highlight jumps immediately to the leftmost position

Why you have to work backwards

Each update sends that Highlight to the front, displacing everything else rightwards. So if you want an order of Services, Prices, Results, you update Results first, then Prices, then Services last. The final update ends up leftmost. Doing it in the intended reading order produces exactly the reverse of what you wanted, which is why people conclude it does not work.

Adding a Story that is already in the Highlight

You do not need new material. Re-adding a Story that is already inside updates the timestamp just as effectively, and the Highlight’s contents are unchanged. This is the cleanest way to reorder without altering anything a visitor sees.

If the archive is empty

Story archiving may be switched off, in which case there is nothing to add and no way to bump the Highlight. Turn archiving on in settings — it saves every Story automatically after it expires, and it is the raw material for all of this. Without it you would have to post a new Story purely to reorder, which is a poor trade.

What belongs in the first three slots

Ordering is only worth doing if the right things are being ordered.

Only three or four are visible without swiping

On most phones the Highlight bar shows three to four circles before the visitor has to swipe, and most do not. Whatever occupies those slots is effectively your entire Highlight strategy; the rest is optional depth.

The most common mistake

The first three slots holding an event from two years ago, a holiday, and something labeled with a single emoji. Those are the three slots a potential customer looks at while deciding whether you are a real business worth contacting.

Covers and labels

Reordering a bar of unreadable circles achieves very little, so this is worth doing at the same time.

Text on a flat brand color is the best option

It is readable at thumbnail size, it is consistent across the row, and it takes minutes to produce. A cropped photograph is prettier at full size and much harder to read as a small circle, which is the only size anyone sees.

Label in plain words

One or two words, and literal rather than clever. ‘Prices’ beats ‘The Investment’. ‘Before and After’ beats ‘Transformations’. Longer labels are truncated, and a truncated clever label is worse than no label at all.

How to set a custom cover

1. Tap and hold the Highlight, then choose Edit Highlight
2. Tap Edit Cover
3. Choose a frame from the Stories inside, or upload an image from your camera roll
4. Position it — the visible area is a circle, so keep anything important centered
5. Save

Check the whole row at once

Look at your profile on a phone after changing the covers. The row should read as a designed set rather than six unrelated images. Consistency here does more for how professional the account looks than almost any individual post.

A twenty-minute Highlight audit

1. Write down the four things a new visitor needs to know about your business
2. Delete or move any Highlight in the first three slots that answers none of them
3. Create the missing ones from archived Stories, or make the Stories now
4. Rename every Highlight in plain, literal language
5. Make consistent covers — text on flat brand color is the safe default
6. Reorder by updating backwards, last one first
7. Check the result on a phone, not a desktop
8. Set a reminder to review it every six months

Delete more than you think

A bar of twelve Highlights is not more useful than a bar of five; it is less, because the important ones are diluted and nothing gets read. If a Highlight does not answer a question a potential customer actually has, it is costing you a slot.

Deleting a Highlight does not delete the Stories

Removing a Highlight only removes the grouping. The individual Stories remain in your archive and can be added to a new Highlight later. That makes this audit far lower-risk than it feels, which is worth knowing before you start.

Highlights as an evergreen asset

Stories vanish after twenty-four hours. Highlights are the only mechanism for keeping the genuinely useful ones visible.

Anything you explain more than twice belongs in a Highlight

If you answer the same question in DMs repeatedly, that is a Highlight. Pricing, process, delivery times, what you do and do not offer. It saves you the message and it answers the question for the many people who would never have asked.

They are not a substitute for a website

Highlights live on ground you do not own, cannot be found in search, and cannot be linked to individually in any durable way. They are the shopfront window, not the shop. Anything important should also exist on a page you control — see website design for small business.

Related Instagram guides

• Saving Instagram Stories as drafts
• Editing Instagram Reels after posting
• Instagram SEO and getting content into Google
• B2B social media
• What social media management costs
• Image and video dimensions for every placement

Troubleshooting

Almost every reported problem with Highlights traces to one of a handful of causes, and the first two account for most of them.

The reversed-order problem is the common one

If your Highlights came out backwards, you did the natural thing and updated them in the order you wanted to read them. Because each update jumps a Highlight to the front, the last one you touch ends up first. Simply repeat the process in reverse and it comes out right.

What to put in each Highlight, concretely

The abstract advice — ‘answer your visitor’s questions’ — is easy to agree with and hard to act on. These are the actual Stories worth recording for each.

Record them deliberately rather than waiting

Most accounts build Highlights from whatever Stories happened to exist. It is far better to spend an hour recording the Stories each Highlight actually needs, then publish them and add them. They only have to be made once and they work for years.

Update prices when they change

A Pricing Highlight with figures from two years ago is worse than no Pricing Highlight, because it is prominently placed and confidently wrong. Put a calendar reminder against it; this is the single most common way a well-built Highlight bar quietly becomes a liability.

Questions about Instagram Story Highlights

Frequently asked questions