Industry News


Photographers Can Now Remove Individual Photos from an Instagram Carousel

November 19, 2021

By Hillary K. Grigonis

© Shutterstock

Good news photographers—for those of you who want to change a published set of Instagram photos, you no longer have to delete the entire post. This week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced an update to the app that allows users to delete individual photos from carousels. The update also includes the ability to shake your phone—presumably in anger at a bug—and get Instagram’s bug reporting options to pop up. The updates are launching first to iOS but expected to arrive on Android later, with the shake feature only available in the U.S. so far. 

[Read: Instagram Subscriptions Could Be Paid Boost Photographers Need]

Carousels allow photographers to share up to ten photos at a time, but previously, to remove one of those photos the only option was to delete the entire post. The update allows single photo deletion. Instagram can be viewed as a portfolio of sorts, so photographers sometimes go back and delete old photos that don’t represent current styles or abilities. 

So how does it work?  

  1. To edit a published carousel, tap on the set of images on your profile.  
  1. Tap on the “…” in the corner to bring up the menu. 
  1. Choose edit.  
  1. A little trash can icon appears in the upper corner. Tapping on the icon deletes that individual photo, leaving the rest of the post intact. 

Instagram gives users some time to change their minds. Like with deleting a single image post, Instagram sends deleted carousel photos to Settings > Accounts > Recently Deleted within 30 Days. Images can be restored from this menu option, but after 30 days, they will be permanently deleted. 

[Read: Do You Give Up Exclusive Licensing Rights When You Post on Instagram?]

In the video on Twitter where he shares the updates. Mosseri called this updates, Mosseri called this user-requested update a “finally feature” and admitted that it’s an option that Instagram should have launched a while ago.

The second tweak launched this week is a feature that Instagram is dubbing Rage Shake. When users are experiencing a bug, shaking the phone brings up a pop-up that leads to Instagram’s bug reporting tool. Here, users can tell Instagram what went wrong in hopes of getting the error fixed. 

The update launched Wednesday for iOS users, with an Android update in the works. Rage Shake is currently only available in the U.S.