Instagram Adds ‘Recently Deleted’ Folder to Restore Post that is Removed

This will make many Instagrammers very happy – the platform is today adding a new ‘Recently Deleted’ folder which will enable users to restore any feed posts that they’ve deleted for 30 days after the fact.

As explained by Instagram:

“Now, for the first time, you can review and restore deleted content in the Instagram app. […] Photos, videos, reels, IGTV videos and stories you choose to delete are removed from your account immediately and moved to the Recently Deleted folder.”

Given the ephemeral nature of Stories, they don’t stick around for 30 days, and will only stay in your Recently Deleted folder for 24 hours max. But everything else will remain available for a month, giving you plenty of time to restore any mistakenly erased IG masterpieces.

Or maybe, maliciously erased. Instagram also notes that many people who’ve had their accounts hacked have also ended up having their content deleted, with no way to recover it.

“We know hackers sometimes delete content when they gain access to an account, and until now people had no way of easily getting their photos and videos back.”

Recently Deleted will offer some recourse in this respect, though it won’t fully solve the problem. Users can still delete content from their Recently Deleted folder too – so if a hacker really wanted to, they could go the extra mile and delete, then remove your posts from the folder, to ensure that they fully scorch your account. If that was their intent.

But Instagram is looking to address this as well, with a new safeguard process for deleting and restoring content:

“Starting February 2nd, we will ask people to first verify that they are the rightful account holders when permanently deleting or restoring content from Recently Deleted.”

So today – starting today, Instagram will implement this new process.

To access your Recently Deleted folder, you need to first update your Instagram app to the latest version. You will then be able to access the folder by going to:

Settings > Account > Recently Deleted

From there, you can permanently delete and/or restore any posts as you see fit.

It could be a handy addition, providing an extra safeguard for your posts.