Instagram Guides: What Happened and What to Use Instead

Quick answer: Instagram Guides are gone. Instagram retired the Guides feature on December 15, 2023, citing low usage. If you landed here looking for how to create a Guide, you no longer can. This post explains what happened, where your old Guides went, and the formats marketers are using instead.

What’s inside

• What happened to Instagram Guides
• Where did my old Guides go?
• What to use instead
• Repurpose your best Instagram content on your website

What happened to Instagram Guides {#what-happened}

Instagram launched Guides in 2020 as a long, article-like format for curating posts, products, and place recommendations into a single themed collection. It was pitched as a way for creators and brands to publish in-depth, evergreen content right inside the app.

It never caught on. Usage stayed low, and on December 15, 2023 Instagram retired the feature. An Instagram spokesperson summed it up simply: usage was low and the team is “always looking at ways to simplify the app.”

So if you remember Guides as that booklet icon next to the IGTV tab on a profile, that is why it is no longer there.

Where did my old Guides go? {#old-guides}

If you published Guides before the shutdown, here is what happened to them:

• Your existing Guides were converted into private Saved Collections. You can still see them, but your followers cannot browse them from your profile anymore.
• Any Guide that worked as public-facing content (a product roundup, an FAQ, a local recommendations list) is no longer visible to your audience.
• Instagram let you download your Guide data through Meta for 90 days after the shutdown. That window has since closed.

The short version: nothing public survives, so anything you want your audience to keep seeing needs to live in a format that still exists.

What to use instead {#what-instead}

Guides were really three jobs in one. Here is where each job goes now:

• Themed “best of” or step-by-step content goes to carousels. A multi-slide carousel does what a posts-based Guide used to do, and it actually gets distribution in the feed.
• Evergreen recommendations you want pinned go to Stories Highlights. Highlights live on your profile permanently and are easy for visitors to tap through.
• Long-form and how-to content goes to Reels. This is where Instagram puts its reach today.

For the full picture of where Instagram is investing now, see our roundup of Instagram’s newest features every marketer should know.

Repurpose your best Instagram content on your website {#repurpose}

Instagram features come and go. The one thing you control is your own website, so the smartest move is to pull your best Instagram content out of the app and embed it where it cannot disappear in a product update.

With EmbedSocial you can automatically collect your Instagram posts, Stories, and Reels and display them as a customizable widget on any website. It is the same idea Guides promised, a curated and evergreen showcase of your content, except it lives on a page you own and keeps working no matter what Instagram changes next.

Here is how to get started:

1. Create an account for EmbedSocial
2. Connect your Instagram account and let it pull in your posts, Stories, or Reels
3. Pick a widget template and customize the layout
4. Copy the code and paste it anywhere on your website

Start free trial. All features included. Cancel anytime.