Instagram is making it easier to bring back deleted posts. The company is launching a “recently deleted” feature in the app that will allow you to review deleted content, including photos, videos, reels, IGTV videos and stories, and restore them. Instagram is positioning this feature as useful against hacks, especially if hackers gain control of an account and start deleting content. Starting today, users will need to confirm that they are the account owners by text or email to permanently delete or restore content.
Deleted items will remain in the folder for 30 days and, if left untouched, will be automatically deleted after that point. However, deleted stories are the exception: they will only stay in the recently deleted section for 24 hours before being removed permanently. To access the folder, navigate to Settings> Account> Recently deleted.
Clearly, Instagram wants to give people a chance to keep their content before permanently removing it. The application already offers a file, or a way to keep the posts without being publicly available, and with this feature, it allows people to keep their posts as an option, even if they want to delete them initially. Instagram benefits from having more content and therefore more data about users. The more you encourage people to keep their posts, the better it will be for the service.
Correction 2/2, 12:22 PM ET: This story initially stated that users need to confirm that they are the account holders to access the resource in general, but in fact they only need to do this to permanently delete or restore content. We updated to reflect this change.