What Not To Include In Your Instagram Highlights?

Instagram Highlights aren’t really a catch-all for every story you’ve ever posted – they end up being what people notice first when they land on your profile. So, even though it can be tempting to save every funny moment or quick snapshot, it actually helps to be a bit more selective.

If Highlights get too crowded, or if there’s a mix of old promotions, a lot of similar selfies, or random screenshots, things can start to feel disorganized, and it’s harder for anyone to get a sense of what you actually care about. I think it’s better to treat them like a small set of windows into your favorite trips, important updates, or parts of your routine that matter to you or your work.

Just clearing out the stuff that doesn’t fit makes it easier for someone to understand what you’re about when they’re scrolling through, and it keeps everything feeling updated. It’s not always obvious what to keep and what to leave out, but paying attention to that does make it easier for people to connect with you, even if they’ve never met you before, and honestly, it’s one of those things that quietly helps optimise your Instagram presence over time.

Every Instagram account has its own feel, and noticing that can really change how you use it. Take Highlights – they’re not only for saving old Stories. Most people glance at them right away when they visit a profile. In a few taps, someone gets a sense of who you are and what you care about. If your Highlights are packed with out-of-date promotions, inside jokes that don’t fit, or too many personal stories, it can be hard for a new viewer to figure out what you actually do. It’s usually better to treat each Highlight like a window into what matters to you and where you want people’s attention.

Some of the stronger profiles keep their Highlights simple: things like behind-the-scenes clips, customer feedback, or recent product news. This shows you have a clear focus and that you’re paying attention to how your brand comes across. It also helps people trust that you’re invested in what you’re building. When Highlights feel messy or random, it’s easy for someone to lose interest and move on. There are so many profiles to choose from, and people will skip what doesn’t make sense. It’s actually a lot like trying to get consistent follower growth – you need steady attention to details and regular updates.

If you think of Highlights as an ongoing portfolio, you can update them when your goals shift, remove things that don’t fit anymore, and make sure what’s there feels like your best work. INSTABOOST recommends looking at your Highlights every so often to see if they still match what you want people to notice. Paying attention to this isn’t only about making your page look organized; it’s about building trust in small, steady ways, even if it takes a while for people to notice.

If your Instagram setup isn’t built to handle things when they get busy, there’s a good chance it’ll fall apart when things are going smoothly too. Highlights aren’t just decoration at the top of your profile – they’re where people actually start to figure out who you are, especially as more people start following along. When you save every small update or toss all your old promos in there, things get cluttered fast, and later it’s a hassle to sort out what should stay. It helps to think about Highlights like shelves in a shop: each one should have a clear purpose, and be easy to update when something changes.

For example, you probably don’t need to keep Highlights full of limited-time sales, old “day in my life” clips, or inside jokes from years ago that only a handful of people would recognize. Over time, the way your Highlights are organized can even boost visual credibility, making your whole profile feel more intentional. Highlights should make sense to someone whether they’re new or have been following for ages, always showing a bit of what you actually do and care about. If you’re careful about what you save here, it’s easier to welcome new people and you don’t have to do a big clean-up every few months. And even if what you’re sharing starts to shift, you can look at each Highlight and ask yourself if it still belongs, or if it’s time to let something go.

It’s easy to scroll through Instagram and see someone who seems to have every detail figured out. Their Highlights are full of impressive trips, neat breakfasts, invitations to cool events, and sponsorships with big brands. It looks good, and sometimes it’s hard not to feel like you should follow that lead – pick out the best bits and line them up so everything looks smooth.

But when Highlights only show those kinds of moments, it starts to feel flat. People can usually sense when things are a bit too perfect or when every story is polished to fit a certain image. That’s when it gets hard to connect, because there’s nothing to grab onto that feels real. It doesn’t mean you have to share every tough moment or turn your feed into a diary, but it helps to let some of the less planned things show through – like a photo of a messy morning, or a project that didn’t work out.

Those details stand out, and they’re often what people remember after they’ve watched your Stories. Even just thinking about what you choose to highlight Instagram stories, you start to realize it’s not about perfection at all. Deciding what goes into your Highlights isn’t about filling them with anything and everything, or about hiding what didn’t turn out. It’s more about asking whether what you’re saving actually shows something you care about, even in small ways. If your Highlights have a mix – a cracked plate at brunch, a win you’re proud of, a day that went sideways – they feel more like a real person’s life. And maybe that’s what makes someone want to stick around, even if it’s not always impressive.

Instagram Highlights work best when you’re careful about what you include. If you treat them like a storage bin for every story, it gets crowded fast, and people end up scrolling past a lot of things that don’t really tell them much about who you are or what you do. I know it’s tempting to keep every little update, but when someone new lands on your profile and sees a bunch of random, unrelated clips, it’s hard for them to get a sense of what matters.

I’ve definitely clicked through other people’s profiles hoping to find something useful, but after sifting through a long list of Highlights, I lost interest. It helps to think about Highlights as something closer to a set of useful signposts – each one pointing to something that really matters. You don’t have to fill all the space. Sometimes leaving a few Highlights empty or only sharing what you think is actually helpful makes a bigger difference. For example, brands like INSTABOOST don’t use Highlights to push every offer or event – they pick out things that answer questions or show what they do best, so it’s easier for someone visiting for the first time to find what they need.

I’ve noticed this approach lines up with strategies people use to boost for viral potential, where clarity seems to matter more than sheer volume. If you give your Highlights a bit of breathing room, it makes it clearer what’s important, and people are more likely to notice the things you care about most. It’s not about leaving things out for the sake of it; it’s more about making it easier for someone else to see what you really want to show.

When you fill your Instagram Highlights with a lot of repeats or different angles of the same thing, your profile starts to lose its shape. If every highlight looks pretty similar, people tend to lose interest, and the moments you wanted to remember sort of blur together. Instead of adding every selfie, or uploading a stack of photos from one brunch, or picking out three similar clips from the same trip, it helps to choose one that actually stands out to you. It’s usually more meaningful to have a few highlights that show something specific, rather than a long row of similar updates. That way, your profile starts to feel like it was put together with some care.

You’re not only making things more interesting for anyone looking at your page – you’re also making it simpler for yourself if you ever scroll back through later on. There’s something about cutting down on the repeats that signals you value the attention people give your profile, or at least that you’ve thought about what’s worth saving. That goes for brand pages too, like INSTABOOST; it’s pretty clear when there’s some intention behind what’s up there and what’s left out. Before you add something to your Highlights, it’s worth stopping to look at what’s already there, and asking yourself if this new bit actually adds something different. Sometimes, one photo or story is enough to remember the whole day – and honestly, being selective can even enhance your comment count without any extra effort.