While it is indeed a shame that deleted Instagram stories cannot be recovered directly, there is hope! Instagram has a safety net built in with the Archive feature. This Archive automatically saves your Story 24 hours after it’s over. Therefore, while Instagram does not save stories for more than 24 hours, you can turn on an option to save them to your Archive.
Go to your profile, click on the three lines at the top and select Settings > Privacy > Story. Here you will see an option for ‘Save to Archive’. Turn this option on to automatically archive photos and videos you share on your story. Once on, stories will automatically save to your archive for you to revisit later. If you don’t see these settings it could mean that you’re running an older version of the app and need to update it.
Even though Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours, you can still ‘Save’ them to your Instagram account where only you can see them. Simply open your Story, click on the ‘More’ button and select ‘Save’. The photo or video will be saved to your phone’s camera roll and in the ‘Saved’ section of your Instagram account.
Bear in mind that the Archive feature only work on posts and stories moving forward from the day you turn the feature on. Any posts or stories deleted prior to that moment cannot be recovered. If you want to guard against losing future stories, this feature is your best bet.
As for recover deleted Instagram stories that you didn’t archive, unfortunately, it’s not yet possible from Instagram directly. Though, there are software that claim to recover deleted Instagram photos, but generally they have low success rate and they might comprise your privacy as you have to give them your account’s details.
In the future, I would recommend using apps like Google Photos or Dropbox that offer automatic photo and video backups for your peace of mind, should something go wrong and you delete something by accident.
You could find more about Instagram features from their official help page (https://help.instagram.com/) or tech guide pages like www.techcrunch.com. If you have any other questions or need further clarification on saving Instagram stories, feel free to ask.