📋 Available on: all paid plans.
Archive refreshes engagement metrics — likes, comments, shares, views, EMV — automatically on a schedule. If you need numbers more recent than the last automatic update (for example, before sharing a report), you can trigger a one-off refresh on an individual post.
This article covers the single-post refresh. For refreshing many posts at once inside a campaign, see Bulk Refresh Metrics.
Where to Find the Refresh Metrics Button
Open the post by clicking it anywhere in your library or campaign. In the right-hand details panel, look at the line that reads "Feed Post: posted X ago, eng. updated Y ago". A small circular refresh icon sits at the end of that line — that's the Refresh Metrics button.
When the Button Is Active
The icon is always visible (except for the cases below), but it is active only when both of these are true:
At least one automatic refresh has already happened. The button needs a previous fetch as a reference point. For brand-new content, wait until the first automatic update has completed.
More than 5 days have passed since the last refresh. Inside the 5-day window, the icon is greyed out and not clickable — Archive is still refreshing this post on its automatic schedule, so a manual refresh isn't needed yet. After 5 days, the icon becomes active.
If the icon is greyed out on a recent post, that's the cooldown — the automatic schedule is doing the work. Newly captured posts are checked frequently in the first few days, then less often as engagement stabilises.
What Happens After You Click
When you click the icon, it starts spinning and the timestamp next to it changes to "refreshing engagement data". Archive queues a fresh pull and updates the engagement numbers when the platform returns them — usually within a few minutes. The icon goes back to its normal state once the update is complete, then enters the 5-day cooldown again.
Limitations
Instagram Stories cannot be refreshed. The Refresh Metrics icon does not appear on Stories — Instagram's API does not return engagement after a Story expires.
One refresh per post per 5 days. After a successful refresh, the cooldown resets and the icon greys out until the window passes.
Refresh updates this post only. It does not change the automatic refresh schedule for other posts.
Refreshing Multiple Posts at Once
For refreshing many posts inside a campaign, use the bulk action from the Campaign Content tab. See Bulk Refresh Metrics. The bulk action follows the same 5-day cooldown rule and Stories limitation, and unlike the single-post icon, it consumes credits per item refreshed.
Common Questions
The Refresh Metrics icon is greyed out — why can't I click it?
The icon is disabled inside the 5-day cooldown window. If the post's last engagement update happened in the past 5 days, the manual refresh isn't available yet because Archive is still refreshing this post automatically. The icon becomes clickable again once 5 days have passed since the last update.
My post shows much lower views than Instagram. Will refreshing fix it?
A manual refresh pulls the latest numbers from the platform, so it can help if the gap is a timing issue. It will not change the underlying source of the count — Archive shows the public, platform-reported view count, which on Instagram can differ from the total views shown to a logged-in account (those can include cross-platform views from Facebook).
Can I refresh a post that's older than a few weeks?
Yes. Archive can refresh metrics on older posts as long as they were captured at some point. Note that a manual refresh updates the metrics once but does not re-enable automatic scheduling on a post that has aged out of the regular cadence.
Does this refresh use credits or count against my UGC limit?
No. The single-post Refresh Metrics icon does not consume credits and does not count against your monthly UGC limit. (Bulk Refresh Metrics, by contrast, does use credits per item.)
If the Refresh Metrics icon is greyed out on a post that's clearly stale (last updated well over 5 days ago), contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) so we can investigate the specific post.