Why Can’t I Share Instagram Posts to My Story

Instagram has many interesting features. One of them is the ability to share posts from your feed to stories. You can share your own and someone else’s posts to your stories. While it sounds exciting to hear, some Instagram users do see the ‘Add posts to the story’ button. Does that happen with you and makes you wonder why you can’t share posts to stories on Instagram? Let’s find out the answer.

Sharing posts to stories increases their visibility among millions of posts shared on Instagram. If you are sharing someone else’s posts, that makes it personal and interactive – that helps if you have a business account. Also, it’s easier cleaner than taking screenshots of the post and adding them to your story.

Let’s see what’s the reason behind not being able to share posts and how to fix it.

Why Can’t I Share Posts to Story on Instagram

There are three main reasons why you can’t share your posts to story on Instagram. Let’s check them out. Before we begin, we recommend you to run internet speed tests to ensure that it has a reliable and consistent mobile internet connection on your device.

1. Check the Account Type

When you see the share button (paper airplane icon) under the post image, it’s the icon indicating that the post can be shared to story. However, the ‘Add post to story’ button is only available for public accounts, that is if users have set their posts visible to everyone. That includes even those without an Instagram account. It doesn’t matter whether your account is private or public. The account privacy matters when you want to share posts from an account that needs to be public.

If you are trying to share a post from a private account, you will not see the share button (paper airplane icon) under the post. Check posts from other accounts, preferably from a celebrity, and see if you can view the resharing option.

To check whether the Instagram account is private or public, open a browser tab in a private or incognito mode. Then open the account from where you want to share the post. If you can see the posts on that person’s profile, that means their account is public.

However, if the posts are hidden, you will also see the text ‘This Account is private.’ That implies that the user has kept their account private and their posts are only visible to their approved followers only.

2. Permission to Share

If the person’s account profile is public, another thing that can be responsible for the missing ‘Add post to story’ button is the permission to share. The other person might have disabled the ‘Allow Resharing of Stories’ option to let their followers share posts to Instagram stories.

If that is the case, you will not see the button for that account. But, check posts from other public accounts. It doesn’t matter whether you have enabled this option for your account or not. It depends on the account from which you are trying to share.

The best you can do is reach out to the person and ask them to enable the option to reshare their posts temporarily. If you want to check how you can disable sharing of your posts to stories, here’s how you can do that.

How to Disable Sharing of Your Posts to Stories

If you don’t want others to share your posts to their stories, follow these steps:

Step 1: Launch the Instagram app and tap the icon in the bottom-left corner to view your profile screen. Tap on the hamburger menu icon (three horizontal lines) at the top and select Settings.

Step 2: Tap on Privacy followed by Story.

Step 3: Turn off the toggle for ‘Allow resharing to stories’ option.

Tip: Find out what is the archive on Instagram and how to use it.

3. Instagram’s Temporary Glitch

Lastly, the feature may be missing for your Instagram profile. Instagram usually rolls out features in phases and not everyone receives the features at the same time. At times these features may disappear temporarily from your account due to bugs in the app. However, you can try the following fixes to get the ‘Add post to story’ option.

How to Fix Cannot Share Instagram Posts to Stories

If you’ve checked the above three reasons and don’t find them affecting you, then you’ll need to employ some fixes with your Instagram profile.

1. Turn off and on Resharing Toggle

Repeat the steps mentioned above to disable the resharing. That is, turn off the toggle next to Allow resharing of stories. Once disabled, restart your phone. Then, enable it again.

Step 1: Launch the Instagram app and tap the icon in the bottom-left corner to view your profile screen. Tap on the hamburger menu icon (three horizontal lines) at the top and select Settings.

Step 2: Tap on Privacy followed by Story.

Step 3: Turn on the toggle for ‘Allow resharing to stories’ option.

2. Update Instagram or Reinstall It

You can install any pending updates for the Instagram app on your Android phone or iPhone. If your phone doesn’t have any pending updates, reinstall the Instagram app. That will not delete your published posts, stories or even followers.

Uninstall the app from your Android phone and iPhone. After that, restart your phone and download the latest version of Instagram for your Android from Google Play Store and iPhone from Apple App Store.

Download Instagram for Android

Download Instagram for iPhone

Tip: Check out 5 cool ways to delete apps from the iPhone and iPad.

3. Clear Cache (Android Only)

Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to purge Instagram cache on iOS. On Android, you can clear the cache for the Instagram app to give it a fresh start. Don’t worry for it won’t affect your published posts and stories on Instagram.

To clear cache for the Instagram app, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open Settings on your phone and go to Apps & notifications.

Step 2: Tap on Instagram under All apps.

Step 3: Tap on Storage followed by Clear cache.

After that restart the Instagram app. Initially, the app might feel a bit slow because it collects fresh cache to load the posts and other elements of the app faster.

4. Check From Different Phone or Desktop

If you want to share a post as your story, you can try logging in from a different phone. Even though the solution sounds bizarre, it has worked for many users. Log in using a different phone and check if you can see the ‘Add post to story’ button on their own account.

Since you can use Instagram from a PC or Mac, you can check if you can see the share button for the posts from the account you want to share it as Instagram stories. If you can, use it from the desktop to share the posts to story.

Try a New Account

If you recently joined Instagram and have a small number of followers, you can try creating a new account. Most new accounts have this feature. However, we wouldn’t suggest creating a new account if you have many Instagram followers. We are aware of how hard it’s to gain followers on Instagram.

The best you can do is wait. Meanwhile, you may take a screenshot of the post and add it to your story. Don’t forget to tag the person.