NEWS

YouTube Stories Are Shutting Down soon

Neeraj Singh

May 28,2023
2 min read
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YouTube first released Stories in 2018, unabashedly lifting the idea for stories from Snapchat, who put it on the map in 2013. As The Verge reported at the time of release, YouTube first announced the feature in November 2017 before releasing it to 10,000 channels in November 2018.

YouTube Stories will officially end on June 26 as the company shifts its gaze to YouTube Shorts. The release was met with mixed reaction from the YouTube community, with veteran creator Phillip DeFranco calling Stories “weird” and their lack of swipe up and video linking features a “missed opportunity.”

In short, YouTube's decision to discontinue YouTube Stories demonstrates a shift in focus towards more engaging formats like YouTube Shorts and community posts. By investing in these tools, YouTube aims to support creators and enhance user engagement on the platform.

“Starting on 6/26/2023 the option to create a new YouTube Story will no longer be available. Stories that are already live on that date will expire 7 days after they were originally shared,” wrote Meaghan Sullivan of YouTube Product Communications in a blog post. “While Stories are going away, we’ve seen that both Community posts and YouTube Shorts are great alternatives that can deliver valuable audience connections and conversations.”

Like Stories on Instagram and Snapchat, YouTube Stories would disappear after a period of time — in this case, seven days. It wasn’t possible to save Stories on a creator’s profile the way you can with Instagram’s Story Highlights, however.

Conclusion

In addition to a community forum post, creators who frequently use Stories will be alerted to their shutdown via a notification in YouTube Studio, in Help Center content, and YouTube will remind creators about the changes in an upcoming Creator Insider video, where it regularly publishes updates. Plus, there will be a notification directly in Stories, if creators access the feature prior to June 26.