Instagram 2025 New Updates You Should Know

Instagram's 2025 Overhaul: What You Need to Know

In 2025, Instagram unveiled one of its most ambitious update rolls ever. Aimed at empowering creators, increasing user customization, and enhancing safety, these changes span every aspect of the app—from profile layouts to messaging privacy. Below is a structured breakdown of its major enhancements.

1. Profile Grid Redesign & Layout Customization

Instagram officially moved away from its iconic square grid format. In early 2025, the platform adopted a taller rectangular grid, optimized for 4:5 aspect ratios (1080 × 1350 px), accommodating vertical videos and images without forced cropping.

While photographers and portrait users praised the change, many long-time users were frustrated. Reddit comments described the new layout as “conceived with no design sense… total headache,” complaining about misaligned thumbnails and distorted layouts.

Following backlash, Instagram introduced subtle customization options—features allowing post reordering, custom thumbnails, moving story highlights into grids, and publishing content only to your profile without broadcasting to your followers.

2. Extended Reels & Enhanced Viewing Options

Creators now have up to 3 minutes to create Reels—up from just 60 or 90 seconds—making room for storytelling, tutorials, or more narrative-rich content. Viewers can also now tap to play Reels at 2× speed, making it easier to quickly navigate long-form content like recipes or explanations.

3. Reels ‘With Friends’ / Shared Content Tab

Instagram revived a version of its old “Activity” feature by introducing a friends’ interactions tab in Reels. This dedicated feed shows Reels that your friends have liked or added notes to, encouraging discovery through shared engagement. While it aims to boost interaction, some users raised privacy concerns over their viewing habits being visible to others.

**4. New Editing App: Instagram Edits

Instagram’s new standalone app, Edits, debuted in early 2025 as a direct competitor to CapCut. Initially available on iOS (Jan 19) and later on Android (April 21), the app supports powerful tools like green‑screen, AI-powered effects, animated filters, background removal, auto subtitles, and real-time export metrics—with content exportable directly to Instagram.

Edits has quickly attracted millions of users, offering creators a seamless in‑platform workflow that bypasses the need for third‑party editors. Instagram head Adam Mosseri emphasized that Edits serves as a testbed for future AI tools across Instagram and Threads.

5. Quiet Posting & Trial Reels: Reducing Pressure

Understanding that posting to a public feed can feel daunting, Instagram introduced features to help reduce stress:

• Profile-only posts: lets you add content to your grid without notifying followers or pushing to their feeds.

• Drag-and-drop reordering: gives users control over post position and visibility.

• Trial Reels: allows uploading a Reel to a small, non-follower audience first, gauging performance before wider release.

According to Instagram, these tools are intended to lower barriers to sharing, empowering users to “create and just do it anyway”.

6. Chat & Messaging Enhancements

Instagram’s DMs saw a wave of new features:

• Scheduled messages and pinned chats for organization.

• Music stickers in chats, QR invitations, AI chat assistants.

• DM message requests filtering for spam or unknown users.

• AI-generated translated messages, message summarization, and to-do/task creation via message long‑press.

These enhancements aim to make messaging more interactive, creative, and useful—especially for creators and businesses.

7. Teen Safety & Privacy Controls

Meta rolled out robust teen safety features on Instagram:

• Accounts under 13 are automatically switched to restricted teen accounts styled with private defaults, limited content visibility and enhanced messaging controls.

• A tap‑to‑block/report button next to messages from unknown users.

• Over 635,000 accounts removed for predatory behavior or sexualization of minors.

These protections reflect Meta’s ongoing effort to strengthen youth protection across its platforms.

8. Controversial New Font: “Rosalía”

Instagram introduced a stylized chalkboard‑inspired font dubbed “Rosalía” for use in Reels and Stories. This font, based on the Spanish pop star’s handwriting, includes secret icons (like hearts or stars) triggered by typing combinations such as <3 .

The font drew polarized reactions: while some called it “fun,” others labeled it “ugly,” “inaccessible,” or even "the next pandemic." Adam Mosseri confirmed that Rosalía is a limited-time experiment in the platform's creativity push.

9. Comment Voting Feature Under Testing

Instagram is experimenting with a dislike/downvote button next to comments on Reels and Feed posts. The intent is to allow users—and especially creators—to privately flag toxic or irrelevant comments. Nonetheless, critics said it could exacerbate bullying and negativity. Meta clarified that dislike counts are private and designed to reduce harmful comments' visibility.

10. AI Tools & Algorithm Tweaks

Several algorithmic and AI-based updates are worth noting:

• AI‑powered caption generation, photo enhancements, object removal, AI avatars and filters.

• Story templates auto-generated based on style or content.

• An improved focus on original content in ranking, with keywords and hashtags playing a stronger role in discoverability.

These changes aim to guide creators toward smarter content creation and amplify visibility.

Final Thoughts

Instagram’s mid-2025 overhaul is expansive—covering creative tools, layout customizations, privacy upgrades, and AI-powered enhancements. While many responses have been enthusiastic, certain shifts—like the rectangular grid and Rosalía font—met with strong user backlash and left some nostalgic for the old minimalist aesthetic.

Whether you're a creator, casual user, or brand, this year’s Instagram changes are designed to let you express more freely, stay Read more