Instagram Adds Shortcut Option to Quickly Select People or Groups for Sharing, Among a Trio of New Messaging Features
Lindsey Gamble / Shortcut
Over the past few days, I’ve spotted a trio of new features for Direct Messages on Instagram:
Group Chat Addition: When responding to another user’s Story, a plus icon is available, allowing users to add someone to response to start a Group Chat.
Tagging in Responses: When responding to a story that is reposted from another account or the story tags other users, those accounts are populated as options to add in the response to start a Group Chat.
Sharing Shortcuts: When sharing a post, there's a Shortcut option that lets users select specific people or groups to add as a shortcut in the sharing tray to easily be able to share posts with them in the future.
Why It Matters: Instagram continues to give Direct Messages significant attention. After officially launching several new DM features earlier this year, Instagram is still experimenting and testing additional ones. While these features haven’t been officially announced yet, they are part of Instagram’s ongoing efforts to deepen the usage of messaging within the app, particularly how people use it to share content with each other.
Collectively, these updates make it easier for users to turn one-off conversations into larger group chats and enable them to add specific people or groups to the sharing tray, simplifying the process of sharing Reels with others.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri recently revealed that Instagram is testing another DM-related feature, Blend, which lets friends share a recommended feed of Reels based on each other’s activity. This feature is accessible via the DM threads between users.
Don’t expect Instagram to slow down with its DM-related features either, as one of its big priorities for 2025 is connecting people.
