As first reported by TechCrunch, the social media platform is testing a feature that displays unseen Story Highlights from mutual followers at the end of the Stories tray, located at the top of the feed.
Unseen Story Highlights appear after finishing all current Stories in the tray. The test targets curated Highlights, not standard Stories that vanish after 24 hours. Only unseen Highlights from the past week will be displayed to users.
“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,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. Social media expert Ahmed Ghanem was the first to identify the feature in testing. TechCrunch noted that the addition comes as Instagram faces criticism for being cluttered with Reels and sponsored posts, which can overshadow updates from friends and family. By surfacing Story Highlights—curated Stories users have saved to their profiles—the platform aims to ensure original content is not missed. — Ahmed Ghanem (@ahmedghanem) December 17, 2024 Meta clarified to TechCrunch that the feature allows users to view unseen Story Highlights from the past week. However, these Highlights will only appear once a user has viewed all the current Stories in their tray. For users who follow a large number of accounts and rarely finish their Stories queue, these Highlights may remain unseen. Unlike standard Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, the test focuses solely on Highlights, offering a new way to revisit stories that users choose to preserve on their profiles.
