All the New Instagram Features & Updates (in 2024)

Here are the 2024 new Instagram features and updates! You’re not going to want to miss out on these.

As always, we will be updating this blog post to bring you up-to-date with all the latest Instagram updates each month of 2024.

After testing out the “Notes” feature in DMs in some countries last year, it is now available more worldwide.

Keep your friends and followers updated on your status with a real-time note.

You can access the note by going into your DMs, or clicking on “Note” above your profile picture on your profile page.

Don’t feel like writing out a note? Record a video instead! This short clip will be available on your notes for the next 24 hours.

This is an older feature too, but it is now available to everyone around the world.

You can create a virtual version of yourself (a custom avatar): with your favorite hairstyle, outfit, makeup, accessories, and more!

A new way to swipe through carousel posts! Rather than swiping left and right to go through the slides, follow these steps instead:

• Place and hold your finger on the grey dots under the carousel post
• Slide your finger right and left to scroll through the photos (you will likely experience a haptic vibration as you scroll through the posts)

Now, “Close Friends” is for more than just your Insta Stories. Next time you want to keep a feed post more low-key, choose the Audience you want to share your post with.

Polls are no longer just for Insta Stories. Get creative in your caption with a poll to ask for your followers’ votes, learn helpful insights, or post a silly “Would you rather?” just for fun!

Choose what you want your child to see or not see on Instagram with the new parental controls.

Staying on your phone late at night and need a reminder to disconnect?

Instagram can now send “Night-time nudges” to teen accounts to help them get off their phone.

Techcrunch says that “The new nighttime nudges will appear when teens have spent more than 10 minutes on Instagram in places like Reels or DMs late at night.”

Let Instagram make Reels videos automatically for you. Just pick photos and videos from your camera roll, and Instagram will do the rest (including editing your clips to follow the beat of your chosen song).

Note: You can then save your video to your camera roll and upload it in your Preview App to plan your feed and schedule it. You can also schedule it to post to TikTok too.

You can make your “Collections” public so that people can see what you’ve saved. It will show up in your profile.

There is a new font style available for Reels (maybe soon for Stories too).

You can add an outline around your text.

Just tap on the third button on top of your screen:

As Instagram explains:

“Anyone can create Reels using your Original Text. You will be listed as the author and can view all Reels created with it. You can remove your name at anytime.”

Received an awesome comment? You can share it in your Story.

• Swipe your finger to the left on top of the comment
• Options will appear
• Tap on the “Story” icon (the first one)
• Design your Story how you want

Like this:

Tip: If you don’t want to see the post, just make it super small and hide it in a corner, or behind an emoji or text.

Tap on “Hide” under a comment if you don’t want others to see it. The person will not know that you hid their comment.

You can unhide the comments at anytime.

Note: You can also hide comments from your Preview App too.

Want to use the latest audio or trending audio? Want to be the first to join a trend?

• Open your Reels editor
• Tap on the “Audio” button
• Scroll down to “New Releases” and “Original Audio”
• Tap on “See More” to see even more new audio

In an effort to protect users against spam, Instagram will now filter messages they suspect are scams to your hidden requests folder when you have the setting turned on to hide message requests and particular words.

To further protect their community, Instagram has rolled out a new feature where you can review public information about the account before clicking on any links, giving users an opportunity to learn a bit more about the account they are interacting with before opening any potentially harmful links.

Common information in this includes the account username, when they joined Instagram, how many former usernames the account has, and more.

AI Chats by Meta AI are a brand new AI chat messaging system only being tested in the US at the moment.

You can start an AI Chat 1 on 1 or for a group.

Some features include asking the AI to send you Reels of places you want to explore, provide recommendations, generate a custom image, and search the web with Bing. There are different AI characters to interact with (some modeled based on popular celebrities), creative tools, resources, and more!

Instagram announced major upgrades to direct messages this month, including the ability to edit your messages.

Make a typo? Forget to add an important detail? You now have up to 15 minutes after you’ve sent your message to make any changes you’d like.

Have a message you don’t want to get buried in your inbox or a certain friend you’re always sharing Reels with?

Eliminate the hassle of scrolling through all of your messages and pin your top 3 chats to the top of your inbox.

Whether you prefer to leave them on read or keep them guessing if you’ve seen their message, you can now toggle your read receipts on and off.

Customize your messages with fun extras like GIFs, voice messages, photos, and more! Plus, if you have stickers you always go back to, you can now save it to your favorites so it’s always at the top.

Who doesn’t love a theme? While we’ve always loved a good theme for your feed, you can now add a theme to your DMs. Choose from a variety of options, like romantic hearts, lively lollipops, or even Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Have even more fun on Instagram with this new hidden emoji game! It’s so fun and simple. Here’s how to play:

• Open a direct message
• Send a single emoji (or have the other person send the emoji) – it can be anything you want!
• Click on the emoji and the game will appear
• The objective is to keep the emoji bouncing by moving the paddle at the bottom. The better you do, the darker the screen will get and the faster the emoji will bounce!

Not all users have this yet, so keep an eye out in your DMs to see if you have access.

Instagram released a ton of new Stories updates in April. One of the newest features is a spinoff of the popular “Add Yours” stickers. You can now create your own “Add Yours” template filled with GIFs, texts, or images. Once you share it to your story, your community can utilize your template and add their own custom details.

Gone are the days of having to delete your story if you forgot to tag someone. Simply tap the three dots, press “More” then “Add Mention” to tag your friends.

Give your stories a creative pop with new custom cutout stickers! This feature is not available worldwide just yet, but check to see if you have access to these cool new stickers by creating a new story and choosing the “Cutouts” option.

Give your stories a retro vibe with new frame options that make your photo look like a Polaroid. Instagram is testing this feature at the moment so not everyone will have access, but keep an eye out on your story options for the “Frames” feature.

Let Meta AI do the creative work for you with AI stickers. Simply tell the AI all of your best ideas for what you want in a sticker and watch the magic happen.

If you have a lot of business requests in your DMs, labels are going to be a huge game-changer for you. Create and edit your own conversation labels, filter DMs by label, and quickly change labels when you need to adjust a customer’s status.

Business owners can rejoice in knowing they can have one less platform to manage now that you can create orders directly from your DMs.

Instagram started out May with even more Stories updates, the latest being the Add Yours Music Sticker.

Create a fun background, add a prompt if you want, and share your favorite song with your community to help them catch a vibe.

This new interactive Sticker for Stories is so unique and fun. The Reveal Sticker will make your Story blurry! Your followers will have to message you to reveal the photo or video you uploaded.

What could you blur / hide? It can be a new product, a secret place you’re currently visiting, or a sneak peek at an upcoming launch – the possibilities are endless.

Have you ever come across a Reel you loved when you clicked on the profile and couldn’t find the Reel you just watched?

We’ve definitely been there and this new feature will help you keep track of where you are in your scrolling.

With Reels, it will display a text of “Just Watched” whereas for photo posts it will display “Just Seen.”

Instagram is slowly rolling out a new setting that would allow users early access to new features.

There’s nothing cooler than getting the first access to all of Instagram’s amazing new features.

Instagram is also reportedly testing out a new way to create themes for chats – with Meta AI.

While we can’t say for certain what this feature will look like, we expect it to work similarly to Instagram’s new Meta AI stickers.

Let your community know when your Stories or Feed Posts have been created with AI with the new AI label.

This setting won’t automatically turn on if you create a sticker with AI on Instagram. So, this new feature is a helpful way to be transparent with your community.

Increase your post’s visibility by cross-posting to Threads! This new feature is slowly being rolled out globally, so make sure you check that you have the latest Instagram app update installed so you get access ASAP.

Note: this only works for photo posts at the moment rather than Reels posts.

Tip: Use Preview to plan your posts and easily cross-post to other platforms like Facebook and TikTok automatically.

As part of their continued efforts to protect users from spam and spam accounts, Instagram is now automatically flagging suspicious or irrelevant accounts that follow you.

Simply go to your Followers and you will see any accounts that are flagged for review at the top. If you wish to get rid of the accounts, tap Remove next to each specific account or press Remove All at the top.

If you’re anything like us at Preview, you love sending Reels to your bestie or partner that you can watch together.

Now you can save the extra step of swiping back into your DMs after every Reel you watch and continuously scroll through all the Reels that have been sent!

Note: This only works for Reels posts at the moment rather than photo or Story posts. You will need to swipe back into your DMs to click on these types of posts that have been sent.

After you get to the end of swiping on your Reels in your DMs, continue swiping to explore even more videos. If you find one you love and want to share, quickly press Send to chat.

Instagram also rolled out new updates to Notes, which include likes, reactions, prompts, and tagging friends.

These new features give users the opportunity to further connect with their community via Notes.

This subtle new update lets you see the type of post you are replying to in your DMs.

Don’t want all your followers to see your new post in the home feed? But just when they visit your profile?

If you want to post quietly, then you’ll love this feature. Tap on the + button to upload a new post on Instagram, and choose “Post quietly to profile”.

If you use Preview to plan your posts, you can save your post from Preview to your camera roll and upload it manually on Instagram using the “Post quietly feature”.

Instagram added new fonts for Reels only at the moment. You won’t find these fonts for Stories (yet).

You can take your Stories to the next level with this new feature. Wow!

Basically, you can create any background you want for your photo.

Let’s say you took a photo of your dog. Instagram will detect your dog in the photo, remove the background (your couch for example), and then you can upload any background you want. You could make your dog float in space, explore the underwater world with Nemo, and meet a dinosaur.

The possibilities are endless!

We will keep updating this blog post as we go.

Which one is your favorite new feature so far?