Instagram's Archive Feature Lets You Temporarily Hide Unwanted Photos

Facebook's photo sharing platform Instagram is incessantly adding new features to its app, whether they are inspired from Snapchat or are its own. That said, Instagram's got a new feature that it's currently testing. Called 'Archive', it lets users temporarily hide their posts from the public for them to be later brought back or permanently deleted.

Spotted on iOS on Monday by Matt Navara, the Archive feature was confirmed by Instagram to be in testing for now but due for a global expansion soon. The Facebook-owned platform told TechCrunch "We're always testing new ways to improve the Instagram experience", and added the Archive option creates a 'private space for personal viewing of old posts' An Instagram spokesperson was quoted to say that the company "will expand the availability of the archive option over the next few months as it continues to iterate on it." We're currently only able to see the Instagram Archive feature on the beta for Android.

Photo Credit: Matt Navara/ TechCrunch

Instagram's Archive feature gives the user an alternative to deleting unwanted posts from their profile. So, instead of deleting your embarrassing posts that you no longer want people to see, while choosing to allow other posts to remain publicly visible, you can hide those posts by just clicking on the Archive option in the photo post's menu. The hidden photos will be available under the Archive section on the top-right corner of your profile tab. You can later unhide them if you change your mind, or delete them.

In order to access it, you can go to your profile tab and look for the opposite-directional 'clock' icon on the top-right corner. If you can see the icon, you can try hiding any of your posts by opening them and then clicking the menu-action showed by three vertical (on Android) or horizontal (on iOS) dots. Tap on Archive and the photo post will be hidden. You can head to the Archive (clock icon) section and view your hidden posts. As we said, you can anytime choose to 'Show on Profile' or 'Delete' it.

Photo-sharing app Instagram has blatantly aped a multitude of features like stickers, AR filters, and Stories from its rival Snapchat in the past. Instagram's parent company Facebook also introduced several of these features on its other apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, and its own Facebook app.