Instagram Launches All-New ‘Close Friends’ Feature After 18 Months of Testing

• Instagram has finally released a new ‘Close Friends’ feature that allows users to post to a much smaller group of friends instead of all their followers.
• The feature was first announced in June 2017 and was called “Favorites” back then.
• ‘Close Friends’ is already available and can be accessed from the Stories camera within your Instagram app. 

One of the features Instagram users have been requesting for a long time is the ability to share posts with a limited number of people. However, that is set to change with the platform’s new ‘Close Friends’ feature which allows you to share your Stories with a limited number of users instead of all of your followers.

Instagram revealed that they started working on the feature in June 2017 and initially called it 'Favorites'. The social media platform revealed that it would allow users to post anything to select users but it seems like that is not the case. The ‘Close Friends’ feature is limited to Stories only as of now and it is unknown if it will expand to photos and videos on users’ feeds in the future.

Image Credits: TheVerge

To use the feature, you can simply head to your Instagram app on Android or iOS and try posting a new Story. Once you take a photo or video, you will see a green circle with a white star on it which will allow you to create and edit a list of your close friends. You will automatically receive suggestions based on your interactions on the platform to make it easier for compiling your inner circle list. During the testing phase, people typically added about two dozen people on average.

To keep things as discrete as possible, friends are not notified when they are added or removed by users on their 'Close Friends' list. However, they will see a green circle for posts that are limited to select users. The decision to finally release the feature was likely to be prompted by the fact that a number of Instagram users started making fresh private accounts for friends circles due to a lack of custom lists. More changes to the platform are expected as well before the year ends with the platform promising changes to user profiles and more.

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