Instagram has launched Instants, a new feature that lets users send unedited, disappearing photos to friends directly from their inbox. It is available globally, with a companion standalone app rolling out in select countries.
Some may compare it to the feature Snapchat is known for, while the foundation of BeReal appears somewhat similar to Instants. The Instants mobile app first emerged in Italy and Spain in April.
Instants sits in the bottom right corner of the Instagram inbox, where a small stack of photos signals new content waiting to be viewed. Users can tap a camera icon to take a photo and share it with either their Close Friends list or their mutuals — people they follow who also follow them back. Once a recipient opens an instant, it disappears.
Unlike Stories or Reels, there are no editing tools on offer. You can write a caption — which, unusually, you add before taking the photo rather than after — but that is the extent of it. The feature appears deliberately stripped back, positioning itself as a lower-stakes alternative to Instagram's more polished sharing formats.
Instagram has seen that people “tend to use Instants to share much more casual, much more authentic moments about their day,” according to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. “And we know that this type of sharing of personal moments with friends is a core part of what makes Instagram Instagram, but we also know that a lot of people don’t really share a lot to their profile grids anymore.”
How sharing works
Once you have taken a photo, a white shutter button sends it immediately. An undo button appears briefly afterwards, giving users a short window to retract a post before it reaches anyone's inbox. Recipients can react to instants or reply, with replies routed straight to DMs rather than appearing publicly.
Friends can also share instants of their own, creating a back-and-forth that Instagram is clearly hoping will feel more like casual messaging than content publishing.
Archive and recap
Despite the ephemeral nature of instants for viewers, the sender's copies are not gone for good. Shared instants are saved in a private archive accessible only to the sender, and are retained for up to a year. From there, users can compile a selection into a "recap" and post it to their Stories for all followers to see — a neat loop that connects the private and public sides of the app.
Safety and parental controls
Instagram has baked its existing safety infrastructure into the feature from the outset. Screenshots and screen recordings are disabled. Community Standards apply, and Instagram says it will use automated tools to detect and remove content that violates its rules.
For teenagers, Instants integrates automatically with Teen Accounts and the Family Centre. No separate parental setup is required. Time spent on Instants — whether through the main app or the standalone version — counts toward a teen's existing daily Instagram time limit. Sleep Mode, which mutes notifications and restricts access between 10pm and 7am, applies by default. Parents who already supervise their teenager on Instagram will receive a notification the first time their teen downloads the Instants app.
The standalone app
Alongside the in-app feature, Instagram is testing a separate Instants app in select countries on iOS and Android. The rationale, according to the company, is speed: users told them they wanted faster access to a camera without navigating through the main Instagram interface. The standalone app connects to an existing Instagram account, and anything shared through it appears for friends on Instagram as normal, and vice versa.
Instagram says it will continue to develop the app based on how people use it, suggesting it remains an experiment rather than a firm long-term product commitment.
Instants as a feature is available globally and the standalone app is available in select markets.
