Instagram rolls out secret Close Friends privacy upgrade that you need to try

06 September 2023 , 14:39

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Instagram has quietly launched a massive new privacy feature which lets you hide feed posts from everyone except close friends

A new Instagram feature has surfaced which could give you much more control over who sees your posts.

From making your profile private to restricting who can DM you, Instagram already has quite a few useful features that improve privacy for users. One of the best is undoubtedly the 'Close Friends' tool which basically lets you share Stories with a hand-picked list of followers and blocks anyone else from seeing them. It's a great way to share more personal or intimate moments from your life, particularly if you've got a few hundred or a few thousand followers and don't want all of them to be able to see everything you do.

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The only limitation of the Close Friends feature up until now is that it only works with Instagram Stories, rather than regular posts. However, all that could be about to change thanks to a new update spotted out in the wild.

The new feature hasn't been widely publicised by Instagram just yet - but is quietly appearing on users' apps (Lia Haberman)

According to a Twitter (a.k.a. 'X') post by social media expert Lia Haberman, certain Instagram users have started gaining access to a new 'Audience' feature which lets them control exactly who sees their posts in the Instagram feed.

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Meta, which owns Instagram, hasn't publicly made a statement about the new feature on the app's official newsroom just yet. However, we at Mirror.co.uk have tried out the feature for ourselves in the UK and sure enough, it appears just after you've finished editing a photo or video before sharing it as a post.

We tried out the new Close Friends tool for ourselves - it works a treat (Ciaran Daly)

How to post photos on Instagram to close friends only

1. Open Instagram and click the + to share something. You'll want to scroll left and select 'Post'.
2. Pick a photo or video from your phone gallery to share. Then follow the steps onscreen to edit it to your liking.
3. Once it's ready, click 'Next' in blue. You'll now have the option to tag people, add a location, add music, and finally, customise the post's Audience

It's worth noting that the feature has only been tested by us in the UK so far and may not be available to all users worldwide just yet, so check your phones to see what's changed.

Ciaran Daly