available in 2011 Users can upload photographs and short videos, follow other users' feeds, and
geotag images with the name of a location. Users can set their account as "private", thereby requiring that they approve any new follower requests. Users can connect their Instagram account to other social networking sites, enabling them to share uploaded photos to those sites. In September 2011, a new version of the app included new and live
filters, instant
tilt–shift, high-resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon. Photos were initially restricted to a square, 1:1 aspect ratio; since August 2015, the app supports portrait and widescreen aspect ratios as well. Users could formerly view a map of a user's
geotagged photos. The feature was removed in September 2016, citing low usage. Since December 2016, posts can be "saved" into a private area of the app. The feature was updated in April 2017 to let users organize saved posts into named collections. Users can also "archive" their posts in a private storage area, out of visibility for the public and other users. The move was seen as a way to prevent users from deleting photos that don't garner a desired number of "likes" or are deemed boring, but also as a way to limit the "emergent behavior" of deleting photos, which deprives the service of content. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies. Since February 2017, up to ten pictures or videos can be included in a single post, with the content appearing as a swipeable
carousel. The feature originally limited photos to the square format, but received an update in August to enable portrait and landscape photos instead. In April 2018, Instagram launched its version of a portrait mode called "focus mode", which gently blurs the background of a photo or video while keeping the subject in focus when selected. In November, Instagram began to support
Alt text to add descriptions of photos for the visually impaired. They are either generated automatically using
object recognition (using existing Facebook technology) or manually specified by the uploader. On March 1, 2021, Instagram launched a new feature named Instagram Live Rooms, which lets four people go live together. In May 2021, Instagram announced a new accessibility feature for videos on Instagram Reels and Stories to allow creators to place closed captions on their content.
Hashtags In January 2011, Instagram introduced
hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users. Users on Instagram have created "trends" through hashtags. The trends deemed the most popular on the platform often highlight a specific day of the week to post the material on. Examples of popular trends include #SelfieSunday, in which users post a photo of their faces on Sundays; #MotivationMonday, in which users post motivational photos on Mondays; #TransformationTuesday, in which users post photos highlighting differences from the past to the present; #WomanCrushWednesday, in which users post photos of women they have a romantic interest in or view favorably, as well as its #ManCrushMonday counterpart centered on men; and #ThrowbackThursday, in which users post a photo from their past, highlighting a particular moment. In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds. The ability to search "Recent" hashtags was temporarily disabled during the 2020 U.S. elections, to prevent the spread of misinformation. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely. Now, users are only able to see a curated selection of "popular" posts using a given hashtag. Instagram said that this is to prevent abuse and so that hashtags do not help users gain views, but it has been noted that using hashtags is the only free method for a user to reach past their existing followers.
Explore In June 2012, Instagram introduced "Explore", a tab inside the app that displays popular photos, photos taken at nearby locations, and search. The tab was updated in June 2015 to feature trending tags and places, curated content, and the ability to search for locations. In April 2016, Instagram added a "Videos You Might Like" channel to the tab, followed by an "Events" channel in August, featuring videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events, followed by the addition of Instagram Stories in October. The tab was later expanded again in November 2016 after Instagram Live launched to display an algorithmically curated page of the "best" Instagram Live videos currently airing. In December 2014, Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden, and Perpetua were five new filters added to the Instagram filter family.
Video Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013. The addition was seen by some in the technology media as Facebook's attempt at competing with the then-popular video-sharing application
Vine. In August 2015, Instagram added support for
widescreen videos. In March 2016, Instagram increased the 15-second video limit to one minute. Albums were introduced in February 2017, which allow up to 10 minutes of video to be shared in one post.
IGTV IGTV was a
vertical video application launched by Instagram in June 2018. Basic functionality is also available within the Instagram app and website. IGTV allows uploads of up to 10 minutes in length with a file size of up to 650 MB, with verified and popular users allowed to upload videos of up to one hour in length with a file size of up to 5.4 GB. The app automatically begins playing videos as soon as it is launched, which CEO Kevin Systrom contrasted to video hosts where one must first locate a video. In March 2022, the application was shut down.
Edits Edits is a
video editing application only available on Android and iOS. The app includes some
AI features and the ability to post directly to Instagram or Facebook. Users can also view statistics on their videos and see other user's videos that are trending in the Inspiration tab. Announced on January 19, 2025 (as a response to the
U.S. government's actions against TikTok and
CapCut), which was available for pre-order on the iOS App Store and set for an Android launch in February 2025, and had an initial release date of March 13, 2025, for iOS, after some delays, officially released for both iPhone and Android devices on April 21, 2025.
Instagram Reels Instagram Reels is the
short-form section of the American social media platform Instagram. Reels focuses on vertical videos that are less than 90 seconds of duration and various features for user interaction. As of November 2024, Reels averages at 150 billion views a day. Creators earn money based on the amount of views they receive, or through ad revenue. In November 2019, it was announced that Instagram would start to roll out a new feature to Brazil known as Instagram Reels. It would then expand to France and Germany. Instagram Reels was officially launched in Pakistan in August 2022, two years after its global rollout in August 2020. It functions similarly to the Chinese video service
TikTok, focusing on allowing users to create short videos already set to existing sounds from other clips. Reels also uses existing Instagram filters and editing tools. Then, the following month, Reels officially launched in 50 countries including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Then in August of that year, Instagram introduced a reels button on the home page. On June 17, 2021, Instagram launched full-screen advertisements in Reels. The ads are similar to regular reels and can run up to 30 seconds. They are distinguished from regular content by the "sponsored" tag under the account name. Despite the "TikTokification" of Reels and the parent company Meta spending millions on courting content creators, user engagement continued to lag way behind TikTok as of 2022. After a period of testing, a duration of up to three minutes was announced in January 2025. On February 26, 2025, Instagram Reels came under fire after numerous users reported a sudden surge in violent and graphic content appearing in their feeds. Meta issued a public apology, stating that a technical error led to the unintended recommendation of such content. A Meta spokesperson explained, "We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologize for the mistake." The number of monthly users also increased from 1.5 billion in 2022 to 1.8 billion as of 2024. Researchers from the
Guizhou University of Finance and Economics and
Western Michigan University found that short-form videos like
YouTube Shorts,
TikTok, and Instagram Reels may make it easier for young adults and children to develop
addictive behavior because short-form videos provide "short bursts of thrills". These researchers found that college students in the U.S. and China watch short-form videos for entertainment, knowledge, and to build social identities.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some parents are concerned about the effects of short-form videos on their children, as there is no way to disable Instagram or set limits. When children watch short-form videos, they learn to expect continual stimulation and fast-paced changes, which can cause problems when engaging in activities that require greater focus, such as reading. The rapid and easily consumable nature of short-form videos can elicit high levels of dopamine; since dopamine serves as a motivator rather than a direct source of pleasure, individuals are compelled to seek rewarding activities and become addicted to them. Such neurochemical responses lead to addictive patterns and behaviors, entering a vicious cycle. Digital addiction can lead to shorter attention spans and slower cognitive processing.
Instagram Direct In December 2013, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a feature that lets users interact through private messaging (colloquially called "DM" OR "DMs," short for "Direct Message"; in some regions, the messages may be known simply as "direct"/"directs"). Users who follow each other can send private messages with photos and videos, in contrast to the public-only requirement that was previously in place. When users receive a private message from someone they don't follow, the message is marked as pending and the user must accept to see it. Users can send a photo to a maximum of 15 people. The feature received a major update in September 2015, adding
conversation threading and making it possible for users to share locations, hashtag pages, and profiles through private messages directly from the news feed. Additionally, users can now reply to private messages with text,
emoji or by clicking on a heart icon. A camera inside Direct lets users take a photo and send it to the recipient without leaving the conversation. A new update in November 2016 let users make their private messages "disappear" after being viewed by the recipient, with the sender receiving a notification if the recipient takes a screenshot. In April 2017, Instagram redesigned Direct to combine all private messages, both permanent and ephemeral, into the same message threads. In May, Instagram made it possible to send
website links in messages, and also added support for sending photos in their original portrait or landscape orientation without cropping. In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website, allowing users to send direct messages from a web version using
WebSocket technology. In August 2020, Facebook started merging Instagram Direct into
Facebook Messenger. After the update (which is rolled out to a segment of the user base) the Instagram Direct icon transforms into Facebook Messenger icon. In March 2021, a feature was added that prevents adults from messaging users under 18 who do not follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. In September 2024, Instagram added a sticker editor which allows users to cut out elements of photos and send them privately. It also enabled sticker addition and writing on photos.
Instagram Stories In August 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a feature that allows users to take photos, add effects and layers, and add them to their Instagram story. Images uploaded to a user's story expire after 24 hours. The media noted the feature's similarities to
Snapchat. In response to criticism that it copied functionality from Snapchat, CEO Kevin Systrom told
Recode that "Day One: Instagram was a combination of
Hipstamatic,
Twitter [and] some stuff from
Facebook like the
'Like' button. You can trace the roots of every feature anyone has in their app, somewhere in the history of technology". Although Systrom acknowledged the criticism as "fair",
Recode wrote that "he likened the two social apps' common features to the auto industry: Multiple car companies can coexist, with enough differences among them that they serve different consumer audiences". Systrom further stated that "When we adopted [Stories], we decided that one of the really annoying things about the format is that it just kept going and you couldn't pause it to look at something, you couldn't rewind. We did all that, we implemented that." He also told the publication that Snapchat "didn't have filters, originally. They adopted filters because Instagram had filters and a lot of others were trying to adopt filters as well." In November, Instagram added live video functionality to Instagram Stories, allowing users to broadcast themselves live, with the video disappearing immediately after ending. In January 2017, Instagram launched skippable ads, where five-second photo and 15-second video ads appear in-between different stories. In May 2017, Instagram expanded the augmented reality sticker feature to support face filters, letting users add specific visual features onto their faces. Later in May,
TechCrunch reported about tests of a Location Stories feature in Instagram Stories, where public Stories content at a certain location are compiled and displayed on a business, landmark or place's Instagram page. A few days later, Instagram announced "Story Search", in which users can search for geographic locations or hashtags and the app displays relevant public Stories content featuring the search term. In June 2017, Instagram revised its live-video functionality to allow users to add their live broadcast to their story for availability in the next 24 hours, or discard the broadcast immediately. Stories were made available for viewing on Instagram's mobile and desktop websites in late August 2017. On December 5, 2017, Instagram introduced "Story Highlights", also known as "Permanent Stories", which are similar to Instagram Stories, but don't expire. They appear as circles below the profile picture and biography and are accessible from the desktop website as well. In June 2018, the daily active story users of Instagram had reached 400 million users, and monthly active users had reached 1 billion active users. In December 2024, Instagram announced that it was trialing a feature designed to help users reconnect with content they may have missed from their mutual followers. This new functionality showcases unseen
Story Highlights at the end of the Stories tray, which is situated at the top of the feed. By doing so, users can easily access curated Stories from the past week that they might not have seen previously. Importantly, this feature will only display Story Highlights—curated collections of Stories saved by users—rather than standard Stories that disappear after 24 hours. Users will only be able to view these Highlights after they have gone through all current Stories in their tray, meaning that those who follow many accounts may find it challenging to see these updates.
Interface redesign tests (2025) In September 2025, Instagram began testing a
Reels-first user interface in India and South Korea. The redesign displays the Reels page as the default home tab, with Stories remaining at the top and the direct messages (DM) button moved to the center of the navigation bar. The Reels tab now occupies the second position in the navigation, while a new
Following tab sits alongside it, offering three feed options: "All" (recommended posts and Reels from followed accounts), "Friends" (content from mutual connections), and "Latest" (the newest posts and Reels). Meta stated that the test would initially reach a limited number of users, with plans for a global rollout depending on feedback.
Verified badges on Instagram Instagram introduced a
verification feature, known as the blue verified badge, in December 2014. The feature allows users to verify their accounts to confirm their authenticity. Instagram began allowing users to request verification for their accounts in August 2018. This marked a significant shift from the previous system where verification was typically initiated by Instagram itself for accounts it deemed to be of public interest or high-profile. With the introduction of this feature, eligible users could apply for verification directly through the Instagram app. The Instagram blue verified badge is a symbol displayed next to an account's name to signify that the account is authentic, credible, and belongs to a public figure, celebrity, brand, or entity of significant public interest. It helps users easily identify legitimate accounts amidst the vast number of profiles on the platform. The badge appears as a blue checkmark located next to the account's username in search results, profile pages, and comments. Obtaining the blue verified badge typically requires meeting certain criteria set by Instagram, such as being notable, authentic, unique, complete, and adhering to the platform's terms of service and community guidelines. Instagram
verifies accounts based on its own discretion, and not all accounts meeting the criteria may be verified. Users can apply for verification through Instagram's settings, but the decision to grant verification ultimately rests with Instagram's team.
Meta (formerly
Facebook) launched paid verification on Instagram in 2021. Paid verification allowed eligible Instagram users to request verification for their accounts via paying a fee, rather than relying solely on meeting the platform's traditional criteria for verification.
Advertising Emily White joined Instagram as
Director of Business Operations in April 2013. She said in an interview with
The Wall Street Journal in September 2013 that the company should be ready to begin selling advertising by September 2014 as a way to generate business from a popular entity that had not yet created profit for its parent company. White left Instagram in December 2013 to join
Snapchat. In August 2014, James Quarles became Instagram's Global Head of Business and Brand Development, tasked with overseeing advertisement, sales efforts, and developing new "monetization products", according to a spokesperson. In October 2013, Instagram announced that video and image ads would soon appear in feeds for users in the United States, with the first image advertisements displaying on November 1, 2013. Video ads followed nearly a year later on October 30, 2014. In June 2014, Instagram announced the rollout of ads in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, with ads starting to roll out that autumn. In March 2015, Instagram announced it would implement "carousel ads", allowing advertisers to display multiple images with options for linking to additional content. The company launched carousel image ads in October 2015, and video carousel ads in March 2016. In February 2016, Instagram announced that it had 200,000 advertisers on the platform. This number increased to 500,000 by September 2016, and 1 million in March 2017. In May 2016, Instagram launched new tools for business accounts, including business profiles, analytics and the ability to promote posts as ads. To access the tools, businesses had to link a corresponding Facebook page. The new analytics page, known as Instagram Insights, allowed business accounts to view top posts, reach, impressions, engagement and demographic data. In November 2018, Instagram added the ability for business accounts to add product links directing users to a purchase page or to save them to a "shopping list". In April 2019, Instagram added the option to "Checkout on Instagram", which allows merchants to sell products directly through the Instagram app. In March 2020, via a blog post, Instagram announced that they are making major moderation changes in order to decrease the flow of disinformation, hoaxes and fake news regarding
COVID-19 on its platform, "We'll remove COVID-19 accounts from account recommendations, and we are working to remove some COVID-19 related content from Explore unless posted by a credible health organization. We will also start to downrank content in feed and Stories that has been rated false by third-party fact-checkers." In June 2021, Instagram launched a native
affiliate marketing tool creators can use to earn commissions based on sales. Commission-enabled posts are labeled "Eligible for Commission" on the user side to identify them as affiliate posts. Launch partners included Sephora, MAC, and Kopari.
Stand-alone apps Instagram has developed and released three stand-alone apps with specialized functionality. In July 2014, it released Bolt, a messaging app where users click on a friend's profile photo to quickly send an image, with the content disappearing after being seen. It was followed by the release of
Hyperlapse in August, an iOS-exclusive app that uses "clever algorithm processing" to create tracking shots and fast time-lapse videos. Microsoft launched a Hyperlapse app for Android and Windows in May 2015, but there has been no official
Hyperlapse app from Instagram for either of these platforms to date. In October 2015, it released Boomerang, a video app that combines photos into short, one-second videos that play back-and-forth in a loop. In April 2026, Instagram launched a stand-alone app called Instants in select European markets, enabling users to share disappearing photos and short videos with close contacts.
Third-party services The popularity of Instagram has led to a variety of third-party services designed to integrate with it, including services for creating content to post on the service and generating content from Instagram photos (including physical print-outs), analytics, and alternative clients for platforms with insufficient or no official support from Instagram (such as in the past,
iPads). In November 2015, Instagram announced that effective June 1, 2016, it would end "feed"
API access to its platform in order to "maintain control for the community and provide a clear roadmap for developers" and "set up a more sustainable environment built around authentic experiences on the platform", including those oriented towards
content creation, publishers, and advertisers. Additionally, third-party clients have been prohibited from using the text strings "insta" or "gram" in their name. It was reported that these changes were primarily intended to discourage third-party clients replicating the entire Instagram experience (due to increasing monetization of the service), and security reasons (such as preventing abuse by automated
click farms, and the hijacking of accounts). In the wake of the
Cambridge Analytica scandal, Instagram began to impose further restrictions on its API in 2018. Third-party services can be used for unlimited browsing of public Instagram profiles without having to create an account, as well as for anonymous browsing of someone else's Stories. Stories are more authentic than typical photos posted as posts because users know that in 24 hours their Stories will disappear if they don't add them as highlighted (however users can check who saw their Story for 48 hours after it was published). For this reason, they are very valuable for market research.
Fact-checking On December 16, 2019,
Facebook announced it would expand its fact-checking programs towards Instagram, by using third-party fact-checkers organizations false information is able to be identified, reviewed and labeled as false information. Content when rated as false or partly false is removed from the explore page and hashtag pages, additionally content rated as false or partly false are labeled as such. With the addition of Facebook fact-checking program came the use of image matching technology to find further instances of misinformation. If a piece of content is labeled false or partly false on
Facebook or Instagram then duplicates of such content will also be labeled as false.
Algorithm and design changes In April 2016, Instagram began rolling out a change to the order of photos visible in a user's timeline, shifting from a strictly chronological order to one determined by an algorithm. Instagram said the algorithm was designed so that users would see more of the photos by users that they liked, but there was significant negative feedback, with many users asking their followers to turn on post notifications in order to make sure they see updates. The company wrote a
tweet to users upset at the prospect of the change, but did not back down, nor provide a way to change it back, which they reaffirmed in 2020. However, in December 2021,
Adam Mosseri, in a Senate hearing on child safety issues, stated that the company is developing a version of the feed that would show user posts in chronological order. He later clarified the company would introduce two modes: a classic chronological feed and a version of it that would let users pick "favorite" users whose posts would be shown at the top in chronological order while other posts would be mixed in below. Since 2017, Instagram has employed the ability to reduce the prominence of accounts ("
shadowbanning") it believes may be generating non-genuine engagement and spam (including excessive use of unneeded hashtags), preventing posts from appearing in search results and in the app's Explore section. In a now-deleted
Facebook post, Instagram wrote that "When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags". Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material. Instagram caused the userbase to fall into outrage with the December 2018 update. They found an attempt to alter the flow of the feed from the traditional vertical scroll to emulate and piggy-back the popularity of their Instagram Stories with a horizontal scroll, by swiping left. Various backtracking statements were released explaining it as a bug, or as a test release that had been accidentally deployed to too large an audience. The company states that "the Shop tab gives you a better way to connect with brands and creators and discover products you love" and the Reels tab "makes it easier for you to discover short, fun videos from creators all over the world and people just like you." However, users have not responded well to the change, taking their complaints to
Twitter and
Reddit, and
The New York Times has shunned Reels in particular, saying "Not only does Reels fail in every way as a
TikTok clone, but it's confusing, frustrating and impossible to navigate". Also in 2020, Instagram rolled out a feature titled "suggested posts", which adds posts from accounts Instagram thinks a user would like to such user's feed. The feature was met with controversy from
The Verge, which reported that suggested posts would keep users glued to their feed, give Instagram more advertising space, and ultimately harm the mental health of users, while Instagram executive Julian Gutman rebutted, stating the feature was not intended to keep users glued to their screens. On June 23, 2021, Instagram announced a test change to the "suggested posts" feature. The company will put suggested posts ahead of posts from people who the user is following in the Instagram feed, citing positive reception as the reason for this change. == Mental health ==