Is your Instagram story blurry before or after you post it?
The photo that you want to post looks fine in your gallery.
However, when you select the photo, it gets blurred out.
If you post the story, it might get flipped upside down.
In some cases, the story will be blurry after you post it.
Either way, it’s important to fix the issue so that your stories will be of better quality.
In this guide, you’ll learn why is your Instagram story blurry, not clear, or has a bad quality, and how to fix it.
Why is my Instagram story blurry?
Your Instagram story is blurry because of a bug on the app.
It could also mean that you have “Use less mobile data” on and “High-quality uploads” off.
As of June 2022, many Instagram users are complaining that their Instagram stories are blurry before they post them.
This happened after the latest Instagram update.
The update probably introduced the blurry stories bug to the app along with many other bugs.
A Twitter user by the name of Cake tweeted that their story was blurry before they post it.
And when they post it, the story will flip upside down.
If you’re encountering the same issue, you’re not alone because it’s a known bug on Instagram.
If there isn’t a bug, a blurry Instagram story is probably caused by your data usage settings.
How to fix a blurry Instagram story
To fix a blurry Instagram story, you need to wait for Instagram to release an update to fix them (if it’s a bug).
If it’s not a bug, the issue is caused by your data usage settings and you need to change them.
There are a couple of data usage settings on Instagram including “Use less mobile data” and “High quality uploads”.
If you enable “Use less mobile data”, content on Instagram will take longer to load.
It will also affect the upload speed of posts and stories.
Hence, you need to disable the setting if you want to prevent uploading delays.
If you’ve disabled “High-quality uploads”, the stories that you post on Instagram might be blurry.
Hence, you need to enable it to increase the quality of your stories and posts.
1. Wait for Instagram to release an update to fix it
First of all, you need to check if Instagram is down or if the blurry story is a bug.
To check if Instagram is down, you can visit DownDetector or Twitter.
DownDetector allows you to check outages of various websites and services.
Once you’re on there, search for “Instagram” and check if there are a lot of reports.
If there are, it means that Instagram is probably down and you have to wait for 24 to 48 hours for it to be back up.
Alternatively, you can visit Twitter and search for “Instagram Down” or the issue that you’re experiencing.
If others are tweeting the same issue as you, it means that there is a bug on the app.
If that’s the case, you need to wait for Instagram to release a new update to fix the issue.
This can take several days or weeks depending on the severity of the bug.
2. Turn off “Use less mobile data”

- Open Instagram.
- Tap on your profile picture on the bottom navigation bar.
- Tap on the menu icon.
- Select “Settings”.
- Tap on “Account”.
- Select “Data usage”.
- Turn off “Use less mobile data”.
Using less mobile data might affect your experience on Instagram.
If you turn it on, photos and videos on the app may take longer to load.
After you’ve turned off “Use less mobile data”, force close the Instagram app and reopen it.
Lastly, try posting the story and see if it’s still blurry.
You can also try connecting to your mobile data instead of a Wi-Fi network.
3. Turn on “High-quality uploads”

- Open Instagram.
- Tap on your profile picture on the bottom navigation bar.
- Tap on the menu icon.
- Select “Settings”.
- Tap on “Account”.
- Select “Data usage”.
- Turn on “High-quality uploads”.
If you turned off “High-quality uploads”, the quality of your stories and posts will be decreased.
If you turn it on, the stories and posts that you upload will be higher in quality.
However, the processing time may be longer due to the larger file sizes.
After you’ve turned on “High-quality uploads”, force close the Instagram app and reopen it.
Lastly, try to post the Instagram story and see if it’s blurry.
Conclusion
If turning off “Use less mobile data” and turning on “Higher quality uploads” does not work, it means that the issue is not caused on your end.
Instead, the blurry stories issue is caused on Instagram’s end.
If that’s the case, you need to wait for Instagram to release a new update to fix it.
If the update contains “Bug fixes and performance improvements”, you need to update the app right away.
In some cases, Instagram might be temporarily down, so you need to wait for some time (e.g. 24 to 48 hours) before you can use certain features.