What are Instagram highlight covers?
Story Highlights are the row of circles under your bio that keep your best Stories on your profile permanently. Each one can have a cover image. When the covers share the same colours and icon style, they act like a menu for your account — “Shop”, “Reviews”, “Travel”, “FAQ” — and make your profile look polished and professional.
Matching highlight covers are one of the fastest upgrades you can make to a profile, and this maker lets you build a full set without any design software.
How to make highlight covers
- Pick an icon from the library, or type your own emoji or letter.
- Choose a colour theme (Blush, Beige, Sage, Black, White, Lilac, Sunset, Ocean, Instagram) or set your own two background colours and icon colour.
- Add an optional label under the icon.
- Select filled or outline style and adjust the icon size.
- Download the 1080×1920 story-size cover, then repeat for each highlight using the same colours.
How to set a highlight cover on Instagram
Save the cover to your phone. On your profile, press and hold a highlight, tap Edit highlight, then Edit cover, and choose the image from your gallery. Instagram crops the centre into a circle — our design keeps the icon perfectly centred, so it lines up every time.
You can add a cover without posting it as a Story first. Using the story-size download (rather than the square one) gives Instagram the full frame it expects and avoids unexpected cropping.
Highlight cover ideas
- Creators: About, Collabs, Tips, Behind the scenes, Favourites.
- Shops: New in, Bestsellers, Reviews, Shipping, FAQ.
- Travel: one highlight per country or city with a plane, map or landmark icon.
- Food: Recipes, Restaurants, Baking, Meal prep.
💡 Use the same colours as your profile picture ring for a fully matched profile.
Related tools
Write a bio to sit above your highlights with the Bio Generator, format it with the Bio Line-Break Formatter and preview your feed in the Grid Planner.