YouTube to Sunset ‘Stories’ Feature on June 26th

YouTube has announced its plans to remove the ‘Stories’ feature from the platform. Following roughly six years of support, users will be unable to post Stories on June 26th, 2023.

The company announced its plans to remove access to Stories in a blog post. YouTube states that there are many ways to create content on the platform, including Community posts and Shorts. In order to prioritize these “key features,” Stories are being removed permanently.

On June 26th, the feature will no longer be available to use. The company also clarifies that Stories that are live on that date will expire seven days after originally shared.

YouTube Stories was first brought into the fold in 2017. This feature was developed as YouTube’s answer to Instagram’s Reels’. At the time, even YouTube referred to Stories as Reels. Similar to Reels, Stories would disappear after a set amount of time. YouTube Stories were originally available to users with over 10,000 subscribers. Flashforward to 2023 and Stories never really caught on. It’s rare that content creators lean on Stories as their method of short-form content versus Shorts.

The news may not come as a surprise to many. YouTube is already seen to be prioritizing its TikTok-like Shorts video model. Encouraging content creators to make short-form video content for the platform, it makes sense that the company wants to engage and develop new ways to highlight these pieces of content. Additionally, YouTube is now supporting an ad revenue plan with Shorts, showcasing its importance.

Recently, YouTube expanded access to Community posts, another option for shorter content. Designed to help creators promote YouTube content, start conversations, etc., Community posts are said to drive engagement via comments and likes. Many popular aspects of Stories are now available in Community posts including rich editing software and the ability to set posts to expire after 24 hours.

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