Overview
- Instants sits inside Instagram’s inbox and sends a photo the moment you tap the shutter with no preview, and friends can view it once before it expires.
- Users are reporting accidental posts and flooding Reddit and X with complaints, with many searching for ways to turn the feature off.
- You can hide the feature by going to Settings > Content preferences > Hide Instants in Inbox, or pause it by pressing and holding the Instants stack and swiping right.
- An Undo button appears right after you send, and deleting the photo from your archive unsends it for anyone who has not opened it.
- Privacy worries have intensified because Instagram recently removed end-to-end encryption from one-on-one messages, which lets Meta access message content.