Facebook Stories allow users to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. They have become a popular way to share ephemeral content. However, some users may be wondering if they can still view Stories after they expire.
Can you view expired Facebook Stories?
Once a Facebook Story expires after 24 hours, it is no longer visible in your main Stories feed. However, that does not mean the Stories are gone forever.
There are a couple of ways you may still be able to view expired Stories:
- Viewing Stories of others – If someone else shared your Story, you can still view it from their profile for as long as they allow it to be visible.
- Viewing your own Stories – You can see your expired Stories for a limited time in your Archive. The Archive holds your Stories for 30 days before deleting them.
So while your main Stories feed will not display expired Stories, they may still be recoverable from other places on Facebook for a limited time.
How to view your expired Facebook Stories
If you want to view your own expired Stories, follow these steps:
- Go to your profile page
- Tap on the menu icon in the top right corner
- Select “Archive” from the menu
This will open your Story Archive, where you can browse through your expired Stories from the past 30 days. Simply tap on any Story to view it.
Do note that there is no way to recover expired Stories that are more than 30 days old. Those Stories will have been permanently deleted from Facebook’s servers.
Why can you still view expired Stories for a limited time?
Facebook keeps expired Stories in an Archive for 30 days for a few reasons:
- In case you want to view your own old Stories again
- In case something went wrong when you originally posted the Story, like a glitch or error
- To give you a short grace period if you change your mind about a Story you shared
The 30 day archive window provides a way to look back at recent, expired Stories while still maintaining the ephemeral nature of Stories that disappear after 24 hours.
Can you save expired Stories before they are deleted?
There are a couple of ways you may be able to save your expired Facebook Stories before they are permanently deleted:
- Screenshot or screen record – When viewing a Story from your Archive before it expires, you can take a screenshot or screen recording to save it.
- Download your information – You can download an archive of your Facebook data which includes your Stories from the past 30 days.
However, Stories can only be recovered for up to 30 days in the Archive. Once deleted after that time, there is no way to retrieve them.
What happens when you try to view an expired Story?
If you try to view an expired Facebook Story that is no longer available, you will see a message saying something like:
“This story is no longer available because it expired or was deleted.”
This occurs when:
- The Story is more than 24 hours old
- The Story is between 24 hours and 30 days old but you don’t have access to the Archive.
- The Story is more than 30 days old so has been deleted from the Archive.
So if you come across an expired Story link or one shared with you, it likely can no longer be viewed as the original poster’s 24 hour window has ended.
Do expired Facebook Stories take up storage space?
Expired Facebook Stories do take up some storage space temporarily:
- For 24 hours they remain in the poster’s Stories feed and occupy storage space.
- For up to 30 days they occupy space in the Stories Archive.
However, once a Story expires after 24 hours and is deleted from the Archive after 30 days, it is permanently deleted and no longer takes up any storage space.
Facebook’s systems automatically handle deleting expired Stories to clear up storage over time. Users don’t have to manually delete Stories to free up space.
Can you delete expired Stories manually?
There is no way for users to manually delete expired Facebook Stories before the 30 day Archive window ends. The Stories will remain recoverable from the Archive for 30 days before automatic deletion.
The only way you can “manually” delete expired Stories is by deleting your entire account. This will remove all Stories stored in your Archive.
However, most users would not want to delete their entire Facebook account just to remove some old Stories.
Conclusion
While Facebook Stories disappear from your main feed after 24 hours, they may still be viewable for up to 30 days in your Archive. You can access your Archive to view expired Stories you still want to see. There is no way to recover Stories older than 30 days though. Facebook’s systems automatically delete Stories after the 30 day window to clear up storage space.
So if you change your mind about a Story, you have a 30 day grace period to view it again. Just make sure to screenshot any important Stories you want to keep forever. After the Archive deletion, not even Facebook can retrieve your expired Stories.
Extra Information
Facebook’s Policies on Expired and Deleted Stories
According to Facebook’s Data Policy:
When you select the audience for your story, send it, and it expires, we remove it from our servers. If you choose to delete your story before it expires, we’ll remove it from our servers immediately.
Keep in mind that people in your audience may still have your story if they took a screenshot or screen recording.
Stories that you don’t think you posted or you want removed for any other reason won’t be removed from people’s accounts or our servers for up to 24 hours.
So Facebook’s official policy is that Stories should be deleted from their servers within 24 hours if posted, or immediately if manually deleted. The 30 day Archive is not mentioned, suggesting it is used just for recoverability and not longer term storage.
Storage Usage of Facebook Stories
On average, Facebook Stories use the following storage space:
| Media Type | Storage per Minute |
|---|---|
| Photo | 22MB |
| Video | 37MB |
So video Stories will understandably take up more storage space. But both photo and video Stories use a significant amount of storage for each minute of footage.
This is why Facebook needs to regularly clear out expired Stories – to limit the storage burden. Billions of Stories per day would quickly add up without deletion policies.
Interesting Statistics on Facebook Stories
- 500 million Facebook accounts use Stories daily
- 1 billion Stories are shared to Facebook daily
- The average Story length is 20.7 seconds
- 18-34 year olds share the most Stories
Stories have become hugely popular on Facebook in recent years. And billions of expiring Stories daily creates challenges for storage capacity that Facebook must stay on top of.
Clearing out expired Stories and keeping only 30 days in the Archive helps ease the storage strain.