Hi, I went through this same confusion a couple of months ago. Instagram handles archived stories differently than archived posts. When you archive a post, you can restore it back to your feed. But with stories, there’s no “restore” button because they were temporary in the first place. Instead, when you go to your profile → three lines (menu) → Archive → Stories Archive, you’ll see every story you’ve ever posted, neatly organized by date.
From there, you have two main choices:
Re-share it as a new story. Tap on the story in your archive, then hit “Share.” It’ll publish again as if it’s brand new, complete with the usual 24-hour lifespan.
Add it to a Highlight. This pins it permanently on your profile under the circle Highlights section, which is a good way to “unarchive” it for anyone visiting your page.
So, the short version: you can’t technically move a story back to its old place, but you can bring it back into the spotlight either by re-sharing or putting it into a highlight. That’s Instagram’s way of “unarchiving.”
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