Instagram Announces New Messaging Improvements

March 4, 2024

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.

screenshots showing message editing flow

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

screenshots showing read receipt settings at an account level

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.

screenshots showing favorite stickers and non-text replies

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.

screenshots showing different chat themes

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.