Instagram Permanently Deletes Some Users’ Story Archives Due to Bug

On Wednesday, Instagram users received unsettling notifications: certain photos and videos from their Stories archives have been permanently deleted. The app displayed messages such as “This story is no longer available” and “Due to a technical issue, this story is no longer available. While we’ve since fixed this issue, your story can’t be restored.”

Meta, Instagram’s parent company, confirmed that the deletion was caused by a bug that has now been fixed, but it is unable to restore the lost content. The company declined to disclose the number of affected users but assured that the error message would be resolved by July 2025.

Instagram Stories are typically ephemeral, disappearing after 24 hours, but users often save them to their Story Archives or Highlights. These archives can serve as a digital diary, including everything from memes to vacation photos. Unlike regular photos, Instagram Stories are not automatically saved to users’ camera rolls unless manually set, making the archives a primary storage for many.

This incident highlights the importance of backing up important media outside of a single platform to avoid such losses in the future.