Do you have drafts saved to your Instagram account, and you want to know whether or not other people can see them?
Considering you haven’t published them to your page yet, it would make sense why you would want to keep them hidden from others.
So, can your followers (or anyone for that matter) see your drafts? And if so, how do you make sure that they stay hidden?
In this article, I’ll cover everything that you need to know!
Can People See Your Unpublished Drafts On Instagram?
No, people are unable to see your drafts on Instagram until you decide to publish them.
After all, this is the entire point of drafts – you can save and work on them in private, and only publish them when you’re ready for other people to see them!
Therefore, you have nothing to worry about. Even if someone were to log into your account, they still wouldn’t be able to see your drafts, as they’re stored locally on your device.
Actually, because of this, it’s easy to lose your unpublished drafts if you’re not careful. I’ll talk more about this a little later.
First, let’s discuss whether Instagram staff themselves can see your drafts.
What About Instagram Themselves? Can Instagram See Your Drafts?
Now that we’ve determined that other Instagram users – including your followers, cannot see your drafts, what about Instagram themselves?
Surprisingly, they cannot see them either!
This is because Instagram drafts are not actually uploaded to Instagram servers – they are stored on your device itself.
This means a couple of things:
- There is no way Instagram staff could view your drafts, even if you wanted to.
- Your drafts will only be present on your current device. Even if you were logged into your Instagram account on another device, your drafts wouldn’t appear there.
This holds true for all types of posts – including photos, videos, and Reels.
Because the drafts aren’t stored on Instagram’s servers, it’s easy to lose them forever if you’re not careful. In fact, it’s not uncommon for people to one day realize that all their drafts are gone – which can be very disheartening!
So, let’s talk a bit more about how to prevent this from happening.
Warning: Backup Your Drafts Before Reinstalling The App!
Because your drafts aren’t actually being stored on Instagram’s servers, this means that they are being stored on your device itself!
TikTok operates the same exact way with their drafts.
Instead of being stored in your camera roll or photos app, they are tied to Instagram’s app data instead.
This means that if you were to delete the Instagram app from your phone, all of your drafts would be deleted as well. And unfortunately, there is no way to recover them if this happens – they are permanently lost.
Therefore, this is extremely important to keep in mind!
If you need to uninstall or reinstall the Instagram app to fix a bug, such as the:
- Blurry profile picture bug
- Can’t save audio on Reels bug
- Couldn’t save, Instagram doesn’t have photo access bug
- Inability to follow hashtags bug
- Crashing when posting bug
…or others, be sure to make a backup copy of your drafts first!
Alternatively, you can simply publish the ones that are ready to be published, and discard the reset.
Either way, I just wanted to make you aware of this so you don’t lose your drafts!
Conclusion
Thankfully, people are unable to see your drafts on Instagram. Drafts are meant to be private, so only you will be able to see them until they’re actually published.
However, because they’re stored on your device instead of Instagram’s servers, you’ll need to be extra careful that you don’t lose them unintentionally. To prevent this, making a backup of them is recommended!
I hope that you’ve found this article helpful, and that it’s answered your questions.
If you have any other questions about Instagram, ask them below and I’ll be happy to help.
Wishing you the best,
– James McAllister