For the past few days I’ve been trying to add GIF stickers to my Instagram stories but the GIPHY feature seems to have vanished completely. When I tap on the sticker icon, there’s no GIPHY option available anymore. I’ve also tried typing keywords like “celebration” or “weekend vibes” in the search function but it keeps showing zero results.
I’m located in Switzerland and wondering if this is a regional thing. My cousin in Germany says she can still access all the animated stickers without any problems. My Instagram app is fully updated to the latest version so that shouldn’t be the issue.
Has anyone else noticed this problem recently? Is this some kind of temporary glitch or did they remove this feature in certain countries? Would really appreciate any insights from the community.
same thing happened to me last week! ig support said it’s a copyright issue with giphy in switzerland. pretty annoying, but they told me it’ll be fixed soon. try fully restarting the app or maybe use a vpn temporarily.
Had this same problem three weeks ago in Zurich on a work trip. GIPHY went completely dark for days, which sucked since I need those stickers for business posts. Here’s what fixed it: logged out of Instagram completely, waited 24 hours, then logged back in. The feature came back slowly - basic animated stickers first, then the full GIPHY library. My marketing contacts say Instagram’s been negotiating with GIPHY over European data rules, which is why some countries get hit harder. Good news though - it’s temporary, not permanent.
I recently experienced a similar situation where the GIPHY stickers were unavailable in my Instagram stories for about two days. It seems like there are issues related to licensing agreements that affect access depending on the country. While I was waiting for it to be resolved, I cleared the app cache and restarted my phone, which provided a temporary fix. If you’re still unable to access GIPHY, it might help to upload GIFs directly from your camera roll until the issue is fully resolved.
This hits close to home. We had the same issue when our social media team got locked out of integrations across different regions.
The Switzerland thing is legit. Instagram’s pushing compliance changes for EU data protection, and Switzerland gets caught up in these updates even though they’re not actually EU.
I’ve seen this before with other platforms - they’ll kill features in certain countries while sorting legal stuff, then slowly bring them back. Timing always sucks since there’s zero heads up.
One fix that worked for us was switching networks entirely. Sometimes it’s your ISP routing through servers Instagram has flagged. Try mobile data instead of wifi or the other way around.
Also check if GIPHY’s website works directly. If that’s blocked too, you know it’s regional restrictions, not just an Instagram glitch.
Should be back in a week or two based on similar situations I’ve tracked. These licensing fights don’t drag on long since both companies lose money.