Instagram has never been shy about borrowing ideas, and its latest move makes that clearer than ever. The platform just globally launched Instants, a new feature that lets you share disappearing, unedited photos with your Close Friends or mutual followers.
The standalone Instants app is now available on iOS and Android, which opens directly to the camera when you log in with your Instagram account.
How does Instants actually work?
You can also access this tool directly from the Instagram inbox. Just tap the mini photo stack in the bottom right corner of your DM inbox to open the Instants camera.
Either way, you snap something in real time and send it instantly. No uploads from your photo gallery are allowed, and you cannot edit the image before sending. Recipients can react with emoji, reply, or fire back their own Instants.
No one can take screenshots on Instants, and photos vanish after being viewed once, and anything unopened disappears after 24 hours. In fact, anything unopened disappears after 24 hours.
If you accidentally send something, there is an undo button to take it back before anyone sees it. Your sent photos are saved in a private archive that only you can access for up to a year. You can also compile them into a recap to post to Stories later.
So which app did Instagram copy this time?
Honestly, take your pick. The disappearing photos and one-time viewing are straight out of Snapchat‘s playbook, which has offered ephemeral photo sharing since 2011. The no-edit, share-as-it-happens format is pure BeReal, an app that briefly took the world by storm by pushing users to post unfiltered photos at random times of the day.
Instants also draws comparisons to Locket, a widget-based app focused on sharing candid photos directly with close friends. But this isn’t new for Instagram because Stories was a direct lift from Snapchat, and Reels borrowed heavily from TikTok. Instants continues that tradition without much apology.
But here’s the thing – it might actually be useful
For all the eye-rolling the clone label deserves, Instants taps into something real. Instagram has spent years drifting toward influencer content, brand deals, and algorithmically pushed posts from strangers.
Instants pulls the app back toward what it was originally built for, sharing genuine moments with people you actually know. In a feed full of perfectly lit brand content, a little unfiltered reality is hard to argue with. Whether anyone actually needs it is another question, especially when BeReal never quite held on and Instagram Stories already does the job for most people.
