After years of Instagram users pining for the return of chronological feeds, the app has finally made a change that lets you put the most recent posts at the top. There is a catch, though: your choice to sort your homepage chronologically is temporary, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
How to see the most recent Instagram posts first
Organizing your feed chronologically is simple. From the Instagram app’s home screen, tap the Instagram logo in the top left to open a dropdown menu with two options: Following and Favorites. Tap Following to see the most recent posts from your followers. That’s all.
As we mentioned above, this change will not stick. If you close the app and reopen it, you’ll be right back on Instagram’s algorithmic feed. You also won’t be able to see Stories in this view, so it feels very much like a sub-feed. But if you tap any of the icons at the bottom of the screen (search, Reels, shop, and profile), then go back to the homepage, it should still be sorted chronologically. To get back to the standard feed, tap the back arrow in the top left.
This feature isn’t available if you’re using Instagram in a web browser, but if you don’t see these options on your mobile device, try updating your app. The Meta-owned platform launched this feature almost a year ago, so getting the most recent version should give you the ability to make your feed chronological. The pre-update workaround still helps, too: tap View Older Posts wherever you see it to gaze upon posts you may have missed.
How to set up Instagram’s chronological Favorites feed
If you follow a lot of accounts, a chronological Instagram feed can become tedious. When Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the change in January 2021, he noted that most people don’t get through most of their feeds. You can use the Favorites sorting option to only see the most recent posts from select accounts.
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It’s the second option on the dropdown menu under the big Instagram name on the app’s home screen, but selecting it will display an empty feed unless you’ve chosen your favorite accounts. Take the app’s suggestion to Add favorites to start, and use the Search, Remove, and Add functions on the next page to set your list—Instagram won’t notify people when you add or remove them. Tap Confirm favorites to finish, and you’ll see all the posts from your chosen accounts in chronological order.
Posts from accounts on your Favorites list will be starred and appear higher up on the standard Instagram feed, Mosseri said in a post on Meta’s official blog.
There are a few ways to manage your Favorites list after you’ve created it. If you’re viewing the Favorites feed, tap the starred list icon in the top right to add or remove accounts. You can also tap the star icon next to a post from a favorited account wherever you see it, then hit Manage favorites to get to the same screen. Or tap the three lines in the top right corner of your profile page, then choose Favorites. It’s a great way to keep only the best posts on your sparkling new chronological Instagram feed.
This story has been updated. It was originally published on March 29, 2022.
