Instagram's new 'instants' feature is driving users crazy. Here's how to disable it
Instagram has introduced a new feature called 'Instants' that allows users to send disappearing photos in direct messages. Many users are frustrated with this addition, feeling it clutters their inboxes. Instructions on how to disable the feature have been provided for those who wish to opt out.
- ▪The 'Instants' feature lets users send disappearing photos that vanish after viewing.
- ▪This feature has been met with criticism for adding unnecessary clutter to users' DMs.
- ▪Users can disable 'Instants' by adjusting their settings to hide them from their inbox.
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Story provenance
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Record
| Original publisher | Tom's Guide |
| Canonical URL | https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/social-media/instagrams-new-instants-feature-is-driving-users-crazy-heres-how-to-disable-it |
| Publication time | Sun, 24 May 2026 06:45:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-24T06:47:31.086Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-24T06:47:31.086Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 1iraFa-KB1RP |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Computing Internet Social Media Instagram's new 'instants' feature is driving users crazy. Here's how to disable it How To By Kaycee Hill published 24 May 2026 Insta's latest addition is diabolical When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Copy link Facebook X Reddit Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Meta has blessed us with another feature nobody requested: Instagram Instants.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Tom's Guide.
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