Instagram Updates & Release Notes

Takeaways

• Instagram Plus is a new subscription designed to give you more of what you love about Instagram.
• It offers exclusive features to help you express yourself, connect deeper with friends, and customize your experience.
• The Instagram you know and love today isn't changing — this subscription is simply an optional upgrade for people who want more.

Today, we’re launching Instagram Plus, a new subscription designed to give you more of what you love about Instagram. Instagram Plus offers exclusive features to help you express yourself, connect deeper with friends, and customize your experience in new ways. The Instagram you know and love today isn't changing and will always be free; this new subscription is simply an optional upgrade for people who want more control, deeper insights, and premium features.

What's included

Instagram Plus has features across three areas: getting closer to who matters, seeing previews and insights, and making Instagram yours.

Get closer to who matters

• Story Spotlight – Give your story priority for your friends.
• Super Hearts – Send vibrant, animated hearts that burst across the screen to celebrate stories from friends.
• Multiple Story Audiences – Create as many audience lists as you want, so you can share exactly the right story with exactly the right people.
• Story Extend – Set your story to last 48 hours so the people you care about have more time to see it.

See previews and insights

• Story Preview – Preview stories without the pressure to react.
• Story Rewatch Insights – See how many times your stories were rewatched.
• Search Viewer List – Quickly check if a specific person viewed your story.

Make it yours

• Custom App Icon – Choose your own app icon from a curated selection designed by Instagram and Instagram creators.
• Custom Bio Font – Customize the font of your profile bio to match your style.
• More Profile Pins – Pin up to 6 posts to your profile to highlight what matters most.
• Post Directly to Profile – Post to your profile or highlights without it appearing in friends' feeds.

You can try all these features right now by signing up for Instagram Plus.
And stay tuned, because we'll keep adding new features to Instagram Plus over the coming months. We can't wait for you to try it.

Instagram Plus is rolling out globally starting today.

Today, we’re introducing Instants, a new way to share photos in the moment with your Close Friends or mutual followers with just a tap. Photos you share on Instants disappear after they’ve been viewed and can’t be viewed after 24 hours. You also can’t edit your instants before sharing, so you can share authentic moments as they’re happening.

How It Works

You can capture an instant by tapping the mini pile of photos at the bottom right corner of your Instagram inbox or by opening the Instants app. From there, snap a photo in real time — no uploads from your phone’s photo gallery. You can also add a caption to your photo, but can’t make any further edits to it.

Next, choose who you want to share your Instant with — your Close Friends or followers that you follow back. Recipients can react with emojis, reply, and send instants back to you. The instants you share will show up as a pile of photos in your friends’ inboxes and disappear once they’re viewed.

The Instants app, rolling out in select countries on iOS and Android, gives you immediate access to the Instants camera — just log in with your Instagram account to get started. Instants work the same across both apps, meaning instants shared via the app will reach your friends seeing them on Instagram, too.

Features to Make Sharing With Friends Simple

• Archive: Your shared instants are saved in a private archive that only you can see for up to one year, which you can access on the top right corner of Instants.
• Recap to Stories: Compile instants from your archive into a recap and post it to Instagram Stories for your followers. Just tap Create recap in your archive to get started.
• No screenshots: Friends can’t screenshot or record instants you share.
• Undo: Accidentally sent an instant? Quickly take it back before friends see it by tapping the undo button. You can also delete an instant from your archive to unsend it to friends who haven’t opened it yet.
• Snooze: Hold down the pile of instants in your inbox and swipe right to temporarily stop receiving them. Bring back instants by holding down the same spot and swiping left.

Built-In Safety and Privacy

All of the safety and privacy protections on Instagram apply to Instants. Instagram’s in-app controls like Block, Mute, and Restrict work on Instants, too, so you can limit receiving instants from specific friends. Your instants can only be seen by those you choose to share them with — your close friends or followers you follow back.

For teens, Instants is automatically integrated with Teen Accounts and Family Center. There is no separate setup — if a parent already supervises their teen on Instagram, that supervision automatically extends to Instants.

Notable protections include:

• Shared time limits: Time spent on Instants counts toward a teen’s daily time limit on Instagram.
• Sleep Mode: Notifications are muted and access is restricted by default between 10PM and 7AM for teens.
• Safety tools: Instagram’s safety features — including block, mute, restrict, content filters, and reporting — all work on Instants.
• Parent notification: Parents of supervised teens will be notified the first time their teen downloads the Instants app.

Instants is available globally starting today as a feature on Instagram and as an app in select countries.

Takeaways

• Instagram will start notifying parents if their teen repeatedly tries to search for terms related to suicide or self-harm within a short period of time.
• These alerts are designed to give parents the information they need to support their teen and come with expert resources to help parents approach these sensitive conversations.
• Meta is also building similar parental notifications for teens’ conversations with AI, to come later this year.

In the coming weeks, Instagram will start notifying parents using supervision if their teen repeatedly tries to search for terms related to suicide or self-harm within a short period of time. This is the latest protection for Teen Accounts and Instagram’s parental supervision features.

We understand how sensitive these issues are, and how distressing it could be for a parent to receive an alert like this. The vast majority of teens do not try to search for suicide and self-harm content on Instagram, and when they do, our policy is to block these searches, instead directing them to resources and helplines that can offer support. These alerts are designed to make sure parents are aware if their teen is repeatedly trying to search for this content, and to give them the resources they need to support their teen.

How the Alerts Will Work

Next week, parents and teens enrolled in supervision will be notified that Instagram will start sending these new alerts to parents, based on their teens’ search activity. Attempted searches that would prompt the alert include phrases promoting suicide or self-harm, phrases that suggest a teen wants to harm themselves, and terms like ‘suicide’ or ‘self-harm’.

The alerts will be sent to parents via email, text, or WhatsApp, depending on the contact information available, as well as through an in-app notification. Tapping on the notification will open a full-screen message explaining that their teen has repeatedly tried to search Instagram for terms associated with suicide or self-harm within a short period of time. Parents will also have the option to view expert resources designed to help them approach potentially sensitive conversations with their teen.

These alerts will roll out to parents who use Instagram’s parental supervision tools in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada next week, and will become available in other regions later this year.

Striking the Right Balance

Our goal is to empower parents to step in if their teen’s searches suggest they may need support. We also want to avoid sending these notifications unnecessarily, which, if done too much, could make the notifications less useful overall.

“When a young person searches about suicide or self-harm, empowering a parent to step in can be extremely important. The fact that Meta has now built this in is a meaningful step forward and is the kind of change that child safety experts have been pushing for.”
– Dr Sameer Hinduja, Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center

In working to strike this important balance, we analyzed Instagram search behavior and consulted with experts from our Suicide and Self-Harm Advisory Group. We chose a threshold that requires a few searches within a short period of time, while still erring on the side of caution. While that means we may sometimes notify parents when there may not be real cause for concern, we feel — and experts agree — that this is the right starting point, and we’ll continue to monitor and listen to feedback to make sure we’re in the right place.

“It’s vital that parents have the information they need to support their teens. This is a really important step that should help give parents greater peace of mind – if their teen is actively trying to look for this type of harmful content on Instagram, they’ll know about it.”
– Vicki Shotbolt, CEO Parent Zone

Building on Existing Protections

These alerts build on our existing work to help protect teens from potentially harmful content on Instagram. We have strict policies against content that promotes or glorifies suicide or self-harm and, while we do allow people to share content about their own struggles with these issues, we hide this content from teens, even if it’s shared by someone they follow.

We work to block searches for terms clearly associated with suicide and self-harm, including terms that violate our suicide and self-harm policies. This means we don’t show any results and instead direct people to resources and local organizations that can help. We also direct people to resources and helplines when their searches aren’t clearly related to suicide and self-harm, but mental health more broadly. We’ll continue to alert the emergency services when we become aware of anyone at imminent risk of physical harm — actions that have saved lives.

We’re launching these alerts on Instagram search first, but we know teens are increasingly turning to AI for support. While our AI is already trained to respond safely to teens and provide resources on these topics as appropriate, we’re now building similar parental alerts for certain AI experiences. These will notify parents if a teen attempts to engage in certain types of conversations related to suicide or self-harm with our AI. This is important work and we’ll have more to share in the coming months.

Express yourself with Instagram Notes

With Instagram Notes, you can quickly share short but powerful messages right in your DMs. Whether you want to give a sneak peek into your day, promote your small business, or chat with friends, Notes are perfect for spicing up your content and keeping your audience engaged.

The Instagram Notes feature lets you connect with your followers in a fun and laid-back way. You can shoot short messages straight to your mutual followers or Close Friends list, making it easy to share quick updates, ask questions, or spark connections with your friends with no pressure. Unlike Stories that are all about the visuals, Notes focus on short and sweet conversations. Think of messages like 'Today I’m all about good vibes!' or questions like 'What’s a book you can’t put down?' to get your followers engaging with you.

To create a Note on Instagram:

• Access your profile picture at the top of your DMs, which has an option that says “Leave a note” or a + icon.
• Tap on your profile picture or the + to start creating a note.
• Type your message (up to 60 characters, text and emojis only).
• Select who can see your note: either your mutual followers or your Close Friends list.
• Tap “Share” to post your note!

Your Notes will appear at the top of your friends’ DMs for 24 hours. Your friends can reply to your note, and their responses will show up as direct messages in your inbox. You can also delete your note at any time by tapping your note and selecting the delete option.
Instagram Notes are all about building a community and letting your true self shine.

Spark creativity and get noticed with creative prompts

There are many clever ways to spark engagement with your followers using IG notes. Here are some ideas:

• Ask questions to your friends
  You can ask fun questions, run polls, or share “Ask me anything” prompts to engage with your followers and encourage them to reply.
• Share daily affirmations to inspire and motivate your followers
  Feel free to share more personal reflections for your friends to get a deeper look into your day-to-day thoughts. Share daily affirmations to inspire others, or quotes that resonate with you. Emojis can make your Note pop and express your mood or message quickly.
• Quote your favorite celebrity, movie, music lyrics, or book!
  Share memorable quotes from your favorite flicks or books to kick off conversations among fans. Think of lines like 'To infinity and beyond!' or 'It does not do to dwell on dreams.' Keep it light with trivia or jokes, like 'Why did the bicycle fall over? Because it was two-tired!' Challenge your followers with riddles for extra fun.
  Using these ideas in your Instagram Notes can create an exciting vibe and strengthen connections with your followers. Let your creativity shine!

Spotify Listening Now on Notes

If you love to share music recommendations to your friends, we’ve now included Spotify in your IG Notes. You can link your Spotify account to Instagram and share what you’re listening to in real time directly to your Notes.

To share music from Spotify:

• Create a Note in your Instagram DMs.
• Tap the music icon (🎵).
• Link your Spotify account if prompted.
• Tap “Share from Spotify” while music is playing.
• Add a caption (optional) and share!

Your Note will automatically update to show the song you’re currently playing on Spotify. If you stop listening, it will update the next time you play a song within 30 minutes. There are also special moments where listening to certain artists on Spotify will trigger unique effects in Notes.
This is a dynamic, real-time way to share your taste and chat with friends who might love the same song as you!

Tricks for getting the most out of Instagram Notes

Use Notes to start meaningful conversations, share thoughts on trending topics, and invite your followers to share their views. This keeps the community vibe alive and encourages thoughtful chats.
Remember, keep it short & sweet. You have only 60 characters, so make every word (and emoji) count. Notes disappear after 24 hours, so make sure to use them for timely updates, reminders, or daily-check ins with your friends.

Encourage replies and stay authentic with your Notes. You can end your Note with a question or call-to-action to invite friends to DM you. Share your real thoughts, feelings, or moments – authenticity helps build stronger connections!
Foster conversations, toss in questions and polls, and create fun challenges to leave a lasting impression on your friends. Stay true to yourself, keep it open, and watch your community thrive!

For further support on using the Instagram Notes feature, visit the Help Center.

Restyle with Meta AI

Whether you want to simply remove an unwanted detail from your story, include a playful element, change the vibe using a whimsical effect, or start a trend with your friends with Add Yours stickers, now you can. Restyle your photos and videos in Instagram Stories to make edits, big or small using Meta AI.

To restyle your photos

• Click on the + on your profile photo to select an image from your camera roll to add to your story.
• After selecting your photo, click on the restyle icon in the top tray.

Make edits to your image by either:

• Choosing Add, Remove, or Change and then describing what you want to edit.
• Typing into the prompt bar at the bottom the edits you want.
• Scrolling to select one of the preset effects above the prompt bar.
• Clicking on the browser icon in the bottom right for even more preset effect options.
  Once your new image is generated you can click “Done” before sharing your story.

To restyle your videos

• Click on the + on your profile photo to select a video from your camera roll to add to your story.
• After selecting your video, click on the restyle icon in the top tray.
• Select a preset effect.
• Once your new video is generated you can click “Done” before sharing your story.

Here are some examples of ways people have enjoyed using restyle

Remove unwanted items and add some flair

Easily restyle your photos and videos in IG Stories, and make your content your own by removing or adding elements. With the ‘remove’ feature in restyle, you can get rid of unwanted elements from the background of your photos. With the ‘add’ and ‘change’ features, you can easily prompt Meta AI to create your vision, whether it’s asking to change your hair color for a fun twist, adding a crown or some balloons to celebrate your best friend’s birthday story post, or adding a sunset background to your selfie – restyling your images can make those small edits that make all the difference.

Show off creativity with preset effects

Experiment with your fashion by using preset effects like ‘sunglasses,’ ‘biker jacket’ or even ‘black clothes’ to transform your outfits. Or you can change the whole style of the image itself to make it look like a watercolor or film noir. Better yet, use these presets as a starting point to spark creativity. You can apply any effect and then type in additional changes you want to make to edit your content in seconds.
There are also several preset effects for short videos. You can transform the style, background, and outfits in your videos. You can turn your whole video into an underwater landscape, add fire and flames all around, or even add snow.

How to write great prompts

We want to give you the creative freedom to edit your photos exactly how you want. The more specific and detailed your prompt, the better Meta AI can match your vision.

Some things to consider:

• Subject (like “add a crown on top of the girl’s head”)
• Lighting and mood (like “add dramatic lighting”, “have light from just a single paparazzi flash”)
• Composition needs (like “in the bottom left corner”, “in the background”)
• Style (like “make photorealistic”, “film noir style”)
• Location (“in outer space”, “in Paris”)

Use the Add Yours sticker to start a trend

Using Add Yours stickers will make it easy for friends to use the same edits you made. You can get inspiration from your friends or start your very own viral trend! If you want others to be able to make the same edits, apply an Add Yours sticker, which you can access by swiping up on your restyled image before sharing to your story.
And if you see an image that was restyled with an Add Yours sticker, you can click on Add Yours, select the image you want restyled from your camera library, and then post. Keep that Add Yours sticker on so more and more friends can hop on the trend.

It’s free and easy to restyle your photos and videos, right in the app you’re already using. Share with your friends and followers in your story or share more privately in DMs.
Get ready to make your photos and videos truly your own with Meta AI!

For more tips & tricks on creating with Meta AI on Instagram, click here. To learn more about Meta AI on Instagram, visit the Help Center.

Today, we’re excited to announce a new way to control your Instagram experience, starting with the Reels tab. Your interests change – and now using AI, your algorithm can change with you.
Instagram has always been a place to dive deep into your interests and connect with friends. As your interests evolve over time, we want to give you more meaningful ways to control what you see on Instagram, starting with Reels. Using AI, you can now more easily view and personalize the topics that shape your Reels, making recommendations feel even more tailored to you.

See and Control your Reels Algorithm

When you’re watching Reels, look for the icon in the upper right corner (two lines with hearts). Tap it to open Your Algorithm. You can see what topics we think you’re interested in, tell us which topics you want to see more or less of, and your recommendations will adapt.

• See your top interests:
  View a summary of the topics Instagram thinks you care about most, right at the top.
• Tune your preferences:
  Type in the topics you want to see more or less of, and your Reels will reflect your choices.
• Share your algorithm:
  If you’d like, you can share your interests to your Story, so friends and followers can see what you’re into.

You can also access Your Algorithm by navigating to Content preferences and tapping on Your algorithm within Settings and activity.

Instagram is leading the way in giving you more control, so your Reels feel relevant and made for you. We’re starting with the Reels tab, and are planning to bring this ability to Explore, and more places in the app soon.

This new feature is available starting today in the US and rolling out globally in English soon. We’re still early in this journey, and will keep refining and improving the experience over time.

Takeaways

• Today we’re excited to start testing Instagram for TV, bringing reels from your favorite creators to the big screen so you can enjoy them with friends.
• We’ve heard from our community that watching reels together is more fun, and this test is designed to learn which features make that experience work best on TV.
• Reels are grouped into channels that match your interests, including new music, sports highlights, hidden travel gems, trending moments, and more.
• Over time, we’re exploring new features, including using your phone as a remote, intuitive ways to channel surf, shared feeds with friends, and making it easier to keep up with your favorite creators in one place.

Today we’re excited to start testing Instagram for TV, bringing reels from your favorite creators to the big screen so you can enjoy them with friends. We’ve heard from our community that watching reels together is more fun, and this test is designed to learn which features make that experience work best on TV.
The app is available in the US on Amazon Fire TV devices, and as we learn from this test, we will expand to more devices and countries.

Getting Started

Start by installing the Instagram app on your Fire TV and signing in with your account. You can also open it directly from the Settings bookmark in the Instagram mobile app. You can add up to five accounts, so everyone in your home can enjoy a personalized way to watch Reels. If you want, you can even create a separate account just for Instagram on TV in a few simple steps.

Explore Reels in Channels

When you log in, reels are grouped into channels that match your interests, including new music, sports highlights, hidden travel gems, trending moments, and more. This is an early test, so the experience will continue to evolve as we explore new ways to watch and learn what people enjoy most. When something catches your eye, reels play automatically with full sound so you can lean back and watch without having to scroll for what’s next.

Enjoy More of What You Love

Search makes it easy to find your favorite creators, browse profiles centered on Reels, and explore anything you are interested in. Over time, we plan to introduce new features, which may include using your phone as a remote, a more intuitive way to channel surf, shared feeds with friends, and making it easier to keep up with your favorite creators in one place.

Safety and Content Standards

Instagram for TV is built for shared viewing, so we apply content standards suitable for a broad audience. In this test, Reels generally follow the PG-13 rating system we recently introduced on mobile. These guidelines shape what may appear on TV.
For teens, Instagram for TV is intended to reflect the same general safeguards available on the Instagram mobile app. This includes limiting access to content, comments and profiles that may be unsuitable for people under 18. Time spent on Instagram for TV contributes to a Teen Account’s overall usage limits, and teens may receive the same reminders about approaching or reaching those limits or sleep mode.
We’re learning and planning to improve Instagram for TV based on your feedback.
Download the app on an Amazon Fire TV device today.

Today, we are excited to announce a number of new DM features to help you better connect with friends, making your messaging experience more flexible and enjoyable. People connect daily on Instagram through posts and stories, but especially privately through messaging, so we’re excited to be bringing these new messaging features to Instagram.

Edit your messages

Whether it’s a typo or something just doesn’t sound right, you can now edit messages up to 15 minutes after sending.
To make a change, press and hold on the sent message, then choose “edit” from the dropdown menu.

Pin chats to top of inbox

For chats you have with your best friends or family, or simply ones you want at the top of your inbox, soon you’ll be able to pin up to 3 group or 1:1 chats for easy access.
To move a chat to the top of your inbox, swipe left or tap and hold on the chat, then tap “pin”. You can choose to unpin a thread at any time.

Toggle read receipts in DMs

Read receipts conveniently let others know you’ve read their message. Now, you can choose to turn read receipts on or off, for all of your chats or specific ones.
To turn it on or off for all chats:

• Go to account settings
• Tap Messages and story replies
• Tap Show read receipts
• Toggle read receipts on or off for all of your chats
  For more information on how read receipts work, visit our help center. You can change your receipts setting at any time.

Save your favorite stickers and upgrade your replies

You can now save your favorite stickers in DMs for easy access. Press and hold on the sticker you want to save and you’ll find them at the top next time you go to stickers.
Additionally, stickers, GIFs, videos, photos, and voice messages are available when you reply to a message. Simply press and hold on the message you want to reply to, select reply, and you’ll see options.

Personalize your chats with more themes

Set the mood for your chat with themes. Whether it’s planning for a get together or some fun banter with friends, there’s a theme for that. Check out our newest themes including Love (soon to be animated), Lollipop, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and many more.
To change the theme for a chat, tap the chat name up top, go into themes, and pick one of the themes available.

We are always working to make messaging on Instagram a fun and private way for people to connect with each other. Stay tuned for more features coming soon.

Trending Now

Today, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads is rolling out a “Trending Now” feature to help you find timely topics that others are discussing. At this time, this feature is only available in the U.S.

Since Threads launched in July, we’ve heard feedback that people want to be able to find timely topics so they can see and join in on conversations they care about. Trending Now can be found on the search page and in the For You feed on Threads. We show up to 5 trending topics, which are determined by our machine learning AI systems based on what people are engaging with now on Threads. When you select a topic, you’ll be taken to search results for that topic. Topics are not personalized to you; they show what is trending across the app in the U.S.

How topics are determined

Our AI systems determine what the Threads community is discussing based on a number of signals including how many posts are made about a given topic, and how many people have engaged with those posts. Topics are selected by the AI systems from all posts that people are talking about on Threads, and not limited to news stories that people are sharing.

Content review and guidelines

After the topics are selected, a team of content specialists review the topics and the corresponding search results – specialists do not curate topics, but they work to ensure nothing violates our Community Guidelines or Recommendation Guidelines, and that themes are not duplicative, nonsensical, or misleading.

We are continually testing and iterating on our technology to make sure that our machine learning AI systems serve appropriate topics that don’t violate our guidelines. You can also report a topic to flag potentially problematic content to us — select the topic, press the three-dot menu on the top right, then select the “report topic” option.

About Threads

Threads is a new app built by Instagram for text-based updates and public conversations. Since we launched Threads last July, we’ve been working diligently to add new features to improve your experience on the app, such as a web experience, a Following Feed, the ability to edit a post, search with keywords, native GIFs, tagging topics on a post, pinning a post, and more. Threads is available globally on www.threads.net, the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

Looking ahead

We’ll continue to listen to feedback and introduce more features that improve people’s experience on Threads.

Takeaways

You can now repost your favorite public reels and posts, and see the content your friends are enjoying.
You can choose to responsibly share your location with friends you pick using the Instagram map.
There’s a new “Friends” tab in Reels where you can see the content your friends have liked, created, reposted or commented on, and easily start conversations about them.

Today, we’re launching several new ways to help you better connect with your friends on Instagram. People have always come to Instagram to share what they’re up to and where they are. Now, with reposts, the map, and the “Friends” tab in Reels, it’s easier for you and your friends to stay in touch through the content you’re enjoying on Instagram.

Repost Your Favorite Reels and Posts

With reposts, you can repost public reels and feed posts, making it easier for you to share your interests with your friends. Reposts will be recommended to your friends’ and followers’ feeds, and they’ll also be in a separate tab on your profile, so you can always go back to revisit your reposts.

Reposts are credited to the original poster. If you’re a creator, this means that if your content is reposted by someone else, it may be recommended to that person’s followers, even if those people don’t follow you. This gives creators a new opportunity to reach more people whenever you create something worth sharing.

To repost a reel or post, tap the repost icon. You can also add a note to your repost by typing into the thought bubble that appears on screen and pressing save.

Connect with Friends with the Instagram Map

Stay up-to-date with friends with the Instagram map. You can opt into sharing your last active location with friends you pick, and you can turn it off anytime. You can also open the map to see content your friends and favorite creators are posting from cool spots. No matter how you use the map, you and your friends have a new, lightweight way to connect with each other.

Location sharing is off unless you opt in. If you do share location with friends, you have controls to customize this experience:

• You choose who you share your location with: friends (followers you follow back), Close Friends, Only selected friends, or no one.
• You can choose to not share location in specific places or with specific people.
• If you use location sharing, your location is updated whenever you open the app or return to the app if it’s been running in the background. You can turn off location sharing at any time.
• If you’re a parent with supervision set up for your teen, you have control over their location sharing experience on the map. You will receive a notification if your teen starts sharing their location, giving you the opportunity to have important conversations about how to safely share with friends. You can decide whether your teen has access to location sharing on the map and see who your teen is sharing their location with.
• Learn more about sharing location.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to share your location, you can use the map to explore location-based content. From checking out stories from friends who’ve gone to a concert or finding a new place to hangout from a local creator’s reel, there’s content to help you and your friends connect with the world around you.

Any content with a location tagged can show up on the map including:

• Reels, posts, and stories from people you follow, available for 24 hours after it’s posted
• Notes from people you mutually follow, available for 24 hours

You can find the Instagram map at the top of your DM inbox. This feature is rolling out to the US today, with more global availability soon.

Find Out What Your Friends Are Enjoying

We’re introducing Friends, a new tab in Reels where you can see public content your friends have interacted with or recommendations from Blends you’ve started and easily start conversations about them. Friends will help you see which reels the people you care about most are creating and are engaging with. We started rolling Friends out earlier this year, and are now excited to launch globally.

To access your Friends tab, tap the “Friends” tab at the top of Reels. To return to your usual Reels feed, tap the “Reels” tab. We’re also rolling out controls for what’s shown in the Friends tab, including controls for hiding your own likes and comments on reels, and muting activity bubbles from specific people you follow.

Takeaways

With the new Instagram schools experience, students can connect with friends and the classmates they know from college or university in a dedicated, private space that’s only for students.
Students can add their school to their profile as a banner, and connect with other confirmed students via a school directory.

Today, we’re launching a new student-only space to help college students connect with fellow classmates on Instagram. College or university students in the U.S. can now add their school to their profile as a banner, and connect with other confirmed students via the school directory.

Add your school

Students will see the ability to “Add school” on their profile. Once someone is confirmed to be a current student by completing a verification process, including providing information to student verification platform UNiDAYS, they will be able to display their school as a banner on their profile. Students can choose who can see their banner.

Once confirmed, students will be able to browse a directory of other confirmed students, helping students connect with classmates at a time in their lives where connecting with their new school-based community can be beneficial.

Connect with fellow classmates

Instagram is a go-to space to connect with friends. Now the directory makes it easier to find fellow classmates and make connections. Using the directory, confirmed students can browse other confirmed students within the entire school or filter by year. We are partnering with student verification platform UNiDAYS to verify a student is an active student at their indicated school.

At UNiDAYS, we're committed to creating safer, more rewarding digital experiences for the next generation. We do this by making verification and digital identity a foundation, not a barrier for young people. We're proud to partner with Instagram to champion digital trust and online safety. This new feature, underpinned by our world-leading verification technology, enables students to build more authentic, meaningful, and secure connections online.

We want Instagram to be a place where people can connect safely with their friends. With the new schools experience on Instagram, college students can better connect with fellow classmates, explore their interests, and build community at school.

Instagram on iPad

Today, we’re excited to announce we’re bringing Instagram to iPad. People have asked for this for a while, and we’ve taken the time to design an experience that optimizes your favorite parts of Instagram for a bigger screen.

Sit back, relax, and watch Reels

Instagram has always been the place where people connect over creativity, and Reels has become a primary way people discover and share entertaining content. With Instagram for iPad, we’ve redesigned the experience to reflect how people use bigger screens today – for lean back entertainment. Now, when you open the app, you’ll drop into Reels, so you can get the entertaining content you love on a bigger screen. You’ll also see Stories at the top, so you can easily connect with the people that matter to you, and messaging is one tap away.

Catch up with the new Following tab

We’ve heard your requests for easier ways to make sure you’re not missing updates from your favorite accounts, so we’re introducing a new “Following” tab on iPad, which gives you multiple ways to see the latest and greatest from the accounts you follow:

• All: Recommended posts and reels from accounts you follow
• Friends: Recommended post and reels from accounts you follow, that follow you back
• Latest: Chronological posts and reels from accounts you follow, with the most recent posts appearing first.

You can choose the order of these feeds to prioritize what you want to see first.

Designed for the big screen

When designing Instagram for iPad, we wanted to take advantage of the bigger screen to give people more features with fewer taps, while keeping it simple. We’ve made it easier to catch up on your messages and notifications with layouts that display both tabs. When you watch reels, you can expand the comments while the reel stays at full size, making it easy to catch up on the best reactions without missing a moment. It’s the Instagram you love, now with more space to play.

Instagram for iPad is now rolling out globally on iPad models that support iPadOS 15.1 and later. It is free for download on the App Store. The new tablet design will be coming soon to Android.

Takeaways

• We’re excited to introduce updates to broadcast channels that will help you better understand and collaborate with your followers.
• Replies, prompts, insights and best practices will help you interact with your audience and analyze what they like, so you can keep delivering the right content.

Broadcast channels are one of the most popular ways for creators to engage directly with their community on Instagram. Creators and their followers exchange over 1.5 billion messages on broadcast channels every month.

Until recently, followers of a broadcast channel could only participate by liking and reacting to messages. Today, we’re excited to introduce updates to channels that will change that, helping you better understand and collaborate with your audience. Here’s what’s new:

• Replies: Give your followers a way to engage with your messages and each other.
• Prompts: Kickstart conversations in your channel with Q&As and daily check-ins.
• Insights and best practices: Understand what’s working and get helpful tips to meet your goals.

Hear Directly from Your Followers

With replies, you can now have real, back-and-forth conversations on your broadcast channel. Your audience can respond to messages and each other, while keeping the focus on your content.

All replies are nested within your messages, which keeps topics organized and makes it easier for your followers to find their place in your channel. And just like with comments, you can delete or report any reply.

To turn on replies, tap your channel name at the top of your channel. Then select “Channel controls” and enable “Allow members to reply to messages.”

Kickstart Conversations

It’s now easier to get the conversation started with your audience. Prompts create buzz in your channel by giving your audience something to respond to, and in turn, a chance to connect with each other.

Break the ice by choosing from suggested topics, or create a custom prompt that fits your channel’s vibe. Your followers can respond with text or photos for up to 24 hours and like their favorite responses.

Keeping track of likes can help you understand what’s popular, what’s working and what isn’t working.

To create a prompt, go into your channel, tap “+” and select “Prompt.”

Whether you’re asking your followers to share their restaurant recommendations or a small moment from their day, prompts keep your channel collaborative.

And when you reply to a prompt response, your message also gets shared in the main channel, giving everyone a reason to check back in and participate.

Grow With Insights and Best Practices

New metrics like total number of interactions, story shares and poll votes will help you track how your content performs and get an idea of what’s resonating.

We’ll help you get the most out of your channel with personalized guidance and best practices. Set a goal for your channel and we’ll suggest specific actions to help you achieve it.

For example, if you’re looking to build your audience across platforms, try reaching all your fans – on both Instagram and Facebook – at once. Just update your settings to automatically share your channel messages to both places.

To learn more about broadcast channels, including eligibility and features, visit our Help Center.

Test Content With Non-Followers Using Trial Reels

Takeaways

• Trial reels are a new way to try out content and see what performs best by sharing reels with people who don’t follow you.
• By sharing reels to non-followers, trial reels give you the freedom to explore new formats and help take the guesswork out of how your content will perform.

Today, we’re introducing trial reels, a new way to try out content and see what performs best by sharing reels with people who don’t follow you.

If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with new ideas without worrying about how your followers might react, trial reels are the tool you’ve been looking for. Trial reels help take the guesswork out of how your content will perform.

See If Content Resonates Before Sharing It With Your Followers

We often hear from creators that they feel nervous about posting too much or trying out content that’s outside of their niche on Instagram, for fear of it not resonating with their followers.

Trial reels will be shown to non-followers first. Now, if you want to try out a new genre, storytelling format or topic, you can easily get a gut check on how your content might perform.

If you feel good about a trial reel and how it’s performing, you can choose to share it with your followers with one tap or decide to set up the reel so that once the trial is over, if it’s performed well, it gets automatically shared with your followers.

How to Share Trial Reels on Instagram

To share a reel as a trial, simply take the usual steps to create a reel, but before sharing, tap the toggle to turn on “Trial.” After sharing your trial reel, you can find it by visiting your profile, where it will appear alongside any drafts you have.

Only you will be able to see that your reel is a trial. It will not be shown to other people on your profile’s main grid or Reels tab unless you later decide to share it with everyone, and your followers won’t see the trial reel in their feed or Reels tab.

Of course, some followers may still see your trial reel in places other than your feed. For example, someone might share your reel with in a direct message or on a page that shows reels with the same audio, location, or filter.

Approximately 24 hours after you share a trial reel, you can view key engagement metrics in the reels viewer – including views, likes, comments and shares – to get a sense of how it’s performing. We’ll also share insights with you, such as how the trial is performing compared to previous trials you’ve shared.

If your trial reel is performing well, you can choose to “share with everyone” so your followers can see it and increase its reach.

Or you can automate this process. When creating the trial reel, you can choose to have Instagram automatically share your trial reel with followers if we determine it’s performing well based on the views it receives within the first 72 hours. You can change this setting at any time.

Once it’s shared with everyone, the reel will live on your profile grid and is eligible to be distributed to followers on all Instagram surfaces.

What Creators Are Already Saying

We began testing trial reels earlier this year, and have incorporated creator feedback into building the current version. We’re already seeing early success from creators who have had access. They report that their fresh content ideas are performing well with both new audiences and existing followers.

Trial reels will start rolling out today and will be globally available to all eligible creators in the coming weeks. We’re excited to continue investing in new ways to help you express yourself on Instagram while reaching your goals.

You can find more information on trial reels, including eligibility, in our Help Center.

Today, we’re introducing message translation, music stickers, scheduled messages, pinned content and group chat QR codes to make it even easier to connect with people over DMs.

Cross the Language Barrier

With our new message translation feature, you can translate messages right in your DMs, helping you communicate with family and friends across the world.

To translate a message in your chat, hold down on the message sent or received in another language and tap “Translate.” The translated message will then appear below the original message in your conversation.

To learn more about message translations in DMs, visit the Help Center.

Share a Song You Love

You can now share songs with the people you’re chatting with, without leaving your DMs.

To share a song, open the sticker tray in your chat and tap “Music” to search for any song in the Instagram audio library. Tap on the track to send a 30-second preview of the song featuring a spinning vinyl of the album.

To learn how to access music stickers, visit the Help Center.

Schedule Messages for the Right Moment

We’ve created a scheduling feature that allows you to schedule messages in DMs, or schedule reminders to stay on top of daily tasks.

To schedule a message, type your text message and hold down on the send button. Select the date and time that your message will be sent, and then tap on the “Send” button to finish scheduling it.

For more information on scheduled messages, visit the Help Center.

Pin Content in Your Chats

Last year, we introduced the ability to pin up to three chat threads in your DM inbox, making it easier to find important conversations. Now, you can pin specific messages to the top of any 1:1 or group chat to make it even easier to coordinate, connect with your friends or revisit content that makes you laugh every time.

To pin a message, image, meme or Reel to the top of your chat, hold down on the message and tap “Pin.” If you want to unpin a message, hold down on the message you’d like to unpin and tap “Unpin.” You can pin up to three messages per conversation.

To learn more about pinned messages, visit the Help Center.

Expand Your Group Chat

You can now share a personalized QR for each of your group chats, making it easier to invite new people to join your conversation.

To make a QR code invite in your DM, open the group chat you’d like to invite others to and tap the group name at the top. Tap the invite link, then tap “QR code” to view the code invite. Share the QR code with friends when you’re together in real life or via DM, or save it to the camera roll to use later.

The admin of the group chat can refresh the QR code at any time, giving your group chat control over who can join.