How To Share A Friend’s Instagram Story In Your Own

When you’re tagged in someone’s Instagram Story, you’ve always received a notification in Instagram letting you know. This week the app added another way for you to interact with that mention: you can reshare it in your own story.

Image: Pexels

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/02/use-instagrams-collections-feature-to-save-interesting-posts/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/nrng34o5odz3cm41mwlk.jpg” title=”Use Instagram’s Collections Feature To Save Interesting Posts” excerpt=”Last year Instagram introduced Collections, a way to organise your pictures within the app into different curated groups. It’s a feature that’s been around for roughly a year now, but it’s one that most people don’t realise is even there.”]

This isn’t something you’re likely going to want to do a ton of, but the idea is that if you’re out with friends and someone shares an awesome video of you doing karaoke or a group selfie that you wish you took instead, you can opt to add it to your story just like you captured that epic shot yourself.

The way it works is fairly simple: When you’re mentioned in an Instagram story you’ll get a notification just like you always have. Above it will be a button to add that mention to your own story. When you tap it, your friend’s message will show up in the Story editor where you can make it smaller or larger and add additional tags or GIFs just as if it was content you were adding from your camera roll.

In order for you to share something in your story you need to have been tagged in the original.

When you repost it, the original posters name will show up in a small icon, and people who see the image via your Instagram story can tap the original poster’s handle to go to their profile.

One caveat: In order for you to share a story post the original poster needs to have a public account. That means that even if they’re your friend and you can see the post, you won’t be able to share posts with folks that wouldn’t have been able to see the original.

If you hate the idea, there’s also a way to turn it off. When you launch your Instagram Story, tap the three dots in the bottom right side of the page labelled “More” and then select “Story Settings” from the pop-up window that appears.

From there, you’ll be taken to a page where you can tweak who can reply to your stories as well as toggle the ability to share photos and videos from your stories off, which is the way to go if you want to keep control over everything.

Using the feature also requires you to have Instagram version 48, which was released today in the App Store and Google Play. If you’ve been mentioned in a story and don’t see the option to share it to your own, then try updating the app.