New: Stickers, Holiday Fun and More for Instagram Stories

Today, we’re introducing a set of tools to help you add context and creativity to your story: stickers, holiday fun and more. Since last month’s update, we’ve loved seeing how you’ve used Boomerang and mentions to make your stories even more fun. Now you have new ways to turn any moment into something you want to share with your friends and followers.

Stickers

No matter where you are or what you’re up to, you can add context to your story with stickers. After you’ve taken a photo or video, you’ll see a new stickers button next to the text and drawing tools. Tap the smiley face to find customizable stickers for weather, the current time and even your location. Adding a location sticker works the same as adding location to the posts you share to feed – simply choose or search for your location. People watching your story will be able to tap the sticker to learn more about the location, but your story won’t show up on the location page itself.

It’s easy to make stickers your own: move them around, make them bigger or smaller and choose from different styles to match your mood. Subtle stickers let your photo or video shine, whereas vibrant stickers bring an extra pop of color to your story. And you can add as many stickers as you want to any part of your story.

Holiday fun

You’ll see a set of holiday stickers available for the next few weeks. A special candy cane brush brings a sweet addition to your drawing tools, and keep an eye out for another set of stickers to ring in the new year!

And more!

A new ‘Hands-Free’ option in the format picker lets you start recording a video with just one tap. Whether you’re playing a guitar solo, building a snowman or perfecting your handstand, there’s no need to press and hold.

You can add as much text to your photo or video as you’d like – simply keep tapping the text button to add more. Choose between left, center and right justified text, and a new slider lets you adjust size easily with automatic text wrap.

Finally, on iOS, you can now save your entire story from the past 24 hours to your camera roll as a single video.

To learn more about today’s updates, check out the Instagram Help Center.

These updates for Instagram Stories are available as part of Instagram version 10.3 available for iOS in the Apple App Store and for Android in Google Play.