Instagram will let users recover recently deleted content

IF you've ever found yourself regretting deleting a photo from Instagram, then this new feature is for you. The social network is introducing a new folder that will save deleted content for 30 days, making it easier for users to retrieve and republish. For greater security, and to protect users from account hacking, Instagram will verify the user's identity before reinstating or permanently deleting content. The function does not yet appear to have rolled out to all global regions.

From photos and videos to reels, IGTV videos and stories, it will now be possible to recover deleted Instagram content for 30 days. The social media is rolling out a new "Recently Deleted" folder containing content recently deleted by a given user. After 30 days, content in the folder will be automatically deleted for good. Note that deleted stories that are not in a user's archive will stay in the folder for up to 24 hours.

To access this new folder in the app, Instagram tells users to head to "Settings > Account > Recently Deleted." However, this tab is yet to appear in all global versions of Instagram, and the social network has not specified which countries are in line to get the feature.

This new function will notably make it easier to retrieve and republish previously deleted content, whether deleted on purpose, accidentally or maliciously. Instagram is boosting security around the feature by checking the user's identity when permanently deleting or restoring content from "Recently Deleted": "We know hackers sometimes delete content when they gain access to an account, and until now people had no way of easily getting their photos and videos back," Instagram explains in a blog post.