Sometimes you see somebody’s post on Instagram and you feel like your audience will enjoy or benefit from it as well. That is when you decide to add that post to your story. What you normally do in that case is that you go to that post, hit the “share” icon that looks like an airplane. Then you choose “add to story” and you are done.

This is an easy process. Yet some users have been reporting that they have problems and can’t share posts to the Instagram story. they would say that the “add to story” option was missing. In this article, we look at some common reasons why this happens and offer solutions to the problem.

In the following, we’ll discuss the main reasons why sometimes we can’t share posts to the Instagram story.

Why can’t people share my Instagram story?

The main reason is that you have not switched on “resharing” option in your Instagram settings. Or your account is private. So, make sure you have these two options works well. Follow the bellow instructions:

Reason 1: Resharing is off

Some users may have not allowed people to share their posts to stories in their account settings. In order to disable people to do so, a user can go to their Instagram profile, tap “Settings”, “Privacy”, and “Story” and then disallow other users from doing that right from there.

To turn the resharing on Instagram app:

  1. Open Instagram and tap on your profile.
  2. Click on the three lines (or three-dots) in the top right corner.
  3. Tap “Settings” then “Privacy.”
  4. Click on “Story,” then toggle the “Allow Resharing to Stories” option.
Why can't people share my Instagram story

Reason 2. Account is private

Some people say the “add to story” option is only available for public accounts and not private ones. In other words, if your account is private, you cannot add any posts to your stories. This is not true!!!

However, there are rules about the type of posts people can add to their stories on Instagram. You cannot add a post that belongs to a private account but you are free to add any posts you want from public accounts to your story.

If you want to see whether the person’s account is set to public or private, search their username in an incognito window. If it says “This account is private” then there is no way you can share their post to your story.

To make your Instagram account public on Instagram app:

  1. Tap profile icon in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  2. Tap three-lined or three-dots in the top right.
  3. Tap Settings.
  4. Tap Privacy.
  5. Switch off the Private Account if it’s on and confirm Switching to public account
Why can't people share my Instagram story private account

Reason 3: Post is an advertisement

Another type of content that you are forbidden to add to your story is advertisements that Instagram itself has placed on the platform.

Reason 4: It’s an Instagram bug

Sometimes what you want to add to your story is none of the above-mentioned but still, you can’t share posts to Instagram stories. In that case, we should have in mind that Instagram is constantly changing its features, advancing the existing ones, or adding new ones. It takes time for every change to take place and it also causes a lot of bugs. It is, therefore, logical to conclude that what you are experiencing is nothing but a small bug. Sometimes the only thing you can do is to wait for the bug to be solved by Instagram. But before giving in there are some solutions that can help us fix the problem.

Fix 1: Make sure Instagram app is updated

Go to the App Store or Google Play and see if there are any Instagram updates available. Instagram is constantly changing the application to give us the best user experience. If you do not update it on a regular basis, these bugs may become problematic. After you download and install the latest version, restart your phone.

Fix 2: Contact Instagram

If the problem still remains, take a screenshot of the place that does not show your the “Add to Story” option. Go to the settings and tap “help”. Choose “Report a problem” and in the next menu “Report a problem”, Upload the screenshot and give Instagram a brief account of your problem. Finally, choose “Submit”. Instagram will answer you in 5 working days.

Summary

In this article, we investigate the problem about can’t share somebody’s post on Instagram story, If you don’t have enough time to read all of our articles, you can look at the summary of that in the following :

main reasons you couldn’t add a post to the Instagram story:

  1. the account of the post owner is private!
  2. the account owner has limited the access to share their stories
  3. Instagram doesn’t let you share sponsored posts!

some solutions may help you to overcome this issue:

  1. update the Instagram application.
  2. change your phone setting and clear the cache.
  3. check if your account is private or not!

Finally, if you are interested in learning new Instagram tips you can follow up Instamber blog.

Author

I'm a writer on a mission to help businesses and brands find their voice, feel important and light up the world by delivering a real message.

2 Comments

  1. Great article… but you soeak about sharing posts/reels to people’s stories…

    But I think it only miss one option… That is actually… Why can’t we allow our followers / anybody share our stories as one of their story… Except if we tag people.. but I can’t tag all my 5k followers…. Any idea?

  2. I have all the allow sharing stories set on but none of my friends that i mention and tag in my stories can’t repost the story. For the hell of it, i tried switching my account to public and my friends had the option to add my story to theirs. I switch my account back to private and the option to share my stories to theirs disappeared. Great article, very informational, it helped me finally figure out why people couldnt share my stories and if the author wants, i can definitely prove it to you if you send me an email.

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