Instagram Expands Reels Length to 3 Minutes Following Creator Feedback

Lindsey Gamble

Instagram now supports Reels up to three minutes long. After users, including myself, started receiving notifications for longer Reels, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri made the official announcement, stating:

"Now, historically, it’s only been 90 seconds, and that’s because we’ve wanted to focus Instagram on short-form video, not on long-form video. But we’ve heard a lot of feedback from a lot of you creators out there that 90 seconds is just too short, so we’re hoping that upping that limit up to three minutes will help you tell the stories that you really want to tell.”

These Reels are also eligible for recommendations.

Why It Matters: Instagram expanding Reels to three minutes appears to be a way to capitalize on TikTok’s brief shutdown, while also aligning with the broader trend of platforms extending their short-form video formats.

For example, YouTube recently rolled out the final phase of its longer Shorts feature, allowing creators to post Shorts up to three minutes long. Similarly, Snapchat added support for three-minute videos a few months ago.

With this added time, combined with the ability for these videos to now be discoverable in the Reels tab (which wasn’t the case for videos over 90 seconds before), creators are given more space to tell their stories. It also adds convenience, as creators can now repurpose their longer short-form videos across multiple platforms, with the maximum lengths more aligned.

However, keeping Reels on the shorter side is likely still best for most creators, as users are accustomed to consuming more snackable videos on Instagram.