Instagram rolls out archiving feature so you can hide unwanted photos without deleting them

The eyes may be a gateway to the soul, but the feeds of social media accounts can be even more revealing. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and their ilk all give people the opportunity to not only share their lives with the world, but present a particular image of themselves. Of course, there are the occasional posts which, well, let the side down.

With this in mind, Instagram is rolling out a new archive feature that makes it possible to remove images from your feed without having to delete them. If you have any embarrassing pictures you'd rather didn’t taint your image, you can hide them without having to lose them completely.

If this sounds a little familiar, it's because you have possibly heard people talking about the feature as it was trialed on a small group of Instagrammers in recent weeks. It also comes just after Google Photos gained a new AI-driven archival tool -- although Instagram's offering takes a rather more manual approach to things.

All you need to do to gain the archive option is to upgrade to Instagram 10.25, and you'll find the feature in the main menu. Just select an image, hit Archive, and it will be removed from your feed and jettisoned into a private folder that only you can access. Should you ever change your mind about a photo you've archived, you can use the Show On Profile option to make it public once again.

Image credit: Ink Drop / Shutterstock