No longer do you have to deal with nostalgic FOMO or scramble at the last minute to find a third-party app that will generate your year-end highlights. On December 9, Meta (formerly Facebook) announced new "Year in Review" features that are built into Instagram and Facebook. Now you can give 2021 a proper send-off without losing any valuable storage space.
While Instagram's top nine grid is a novel review, finding the best app for the job is always confusing, and there's nothing personal about the automated results. Your favorite photos don't necessarily depict the most wonderful time of the year, and they tend to be selfies and puppy photos. In contrast, Instagram's Year in Review compiles your best stories from the year into a highlight reel called "2021 Recap." The new feature allows you to curate the automatically generated selection so you can edit it to better reflect the moments you want to relive in 2021. You can do the same thing on Facebook using Year Together cards.
Here's how to bring more love and more screen time to your favorite memories with the new Year in Review feature.
How to Create a 2021 Playback Story on Instagram
The year-in-review feature called 2021 Replay has launched globally on December 9, but it may take some time to reach your account. When it's available to you, you'll see a pop-up notification at the top of the feed prompting you to "View Playback." Alternatively, if you see someone else posting a replay, you can click on the 2021 sticker in their story, which will prompt your own story. To get ideas on how others are using the feature, you can click through the 2021 Instagram Creator Stories Collection for more tips and ideas. (You can also use this highlight to access 2021 stickers, taking you to your own replay.)
When you click on a stream notification or 2021 sticker in someone's Story, you'll see a popup that says "View your 2021 plays." It gives you an automatically generated slideshow of your stories from the past year that you can preview, and then a second prompt asks if you want to share it. The feature is fully editable, so you can add or remove any story you want to play from your story archive before sharing your story. You can select a total of 10 stories and add text, stickers, filters, tags and mentions before sharing with your close friends, followers or privately via DM. According to Instagram, the feature will last "a few weeks," until the end of the year.
But wait – aren’t your stories supposed to disappear after 24 hours? Yes, but Instagram maintains an archive of your Stories, which you can access through settings. It's a repository of content from the past year that can be used to build your year in review. (If you don't want Instagram to save your Stories, even privately, you can turn off the "Save to Archive" setting there.)
How to make a "One Year Together" card on Facebook
Launching globally from December 9, the Facebook app introduces a dynamic recap that highlights different elements of your time on Facebook throughout the year. Digital cards will reflect special posts with friends, feelings you shared, and cultural events you participated in. The personalized experience will be crafted into a custom, shareable card that you can post any time between now and December 30th.
