Can You Save Your Instagram Stories? It's Not Exactly Like Snapchat

Another day, another way to share moments of your life with 10,000 of your closest followers. Instagram Stories launched this morning, and sent the social media world into a flurry of excitement (both positive and negative). As users try to figure out what exactly to do with this new function, and how exactly it's different from anything Snapchat already offers, many are wondering, can you save your Instagram stories?

The short answer is that you can't, at least not like you can on Snapchat. Stories disappear after 24 hours no matter what. Still, according to TechCrunch, you can post individuals photos and videos from your story to your regular Instagram feed, if you find yourself getting particularly attached to any of them. Be warned, others could be saving slides from your story too, at least in a screenshotted form, and unlike on Snapchat, there aren't any notifications to let you know. So that extremely unflattering selfie you post as a joke might just live on forever in some random follower's phone.

The whole point of Instagram Stories (well, besides taking away some of Snapchat's business...) seems to be that you can post more content without adding to the clutter of your feed. The most popular Instagram accounts are known for being curated, so this new development allows users to let loose while still maintaining their overall aesthetic. But not everyone is crazy about the development.

Many people had been hoping for Instagram to make other kinds of changes instead. In particular, lots of users are still upset about the photo-sharing company switching up their algorithm back in June, so that posts don't appear chronologically anymore, but based on some sort of mysterious system that gives weight to posts Instagram believes are more "valuable" to you. These users are still actively hoping that the company will change the algorithm back.

So hearing that Instagram had an exciting announcement, only to find what seemed to many to be a rip-off of Snapchat, had many users like:

But who knows? Maybe users will really cotton to the new Instagram Stories. After all, it's great for people who already have lots of followers on the platform, and had been wanting to use Snapchat but were wary of building up a following from the ground up again.

And if you do feel motivated to make a rash, angry Instagram Story about how much you hate the idea of Instagram Stories, don't worry if you later change your mind. Your story will be gone by then, and no one will ever be able to prove anything.