Instagram is testing a change that hides Stories from over-sharers

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Instagram logo on phone
Instagram logo on phone (Image credit: Joe Maring / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Instagram is working on a change that will limit how many Stories people see from individuals.
  • Only the first three Stories will appear by default.
  • People can tap to see all Stories if they want to.

Have you ever been watching Instagram Stories and been faced with someone who just won't stop sharing? The social network is testing a change that will cut that out entirely, limiting the number of Stories that you see by default.

The change appears to be rolling out to a limited number of testers right now with Tecnoblog noting that those people see just three Stories from the people they follow — but they can tap a "Show All" button if they want to lay eyes on the all of them.

This is potentially a huge change for Instagram creators who can now thread up to 100 Stories together, creating an overarching narrative. While that will still be possible, it's likely that only the first three Stories will be seen by a ton of people — vastly reducing the engagement on all subsequent posts.

As someone who has seen people post an excessive number of Stories in the past, this is a change I'm absolutely here for — but I can also see why creators could be wary of it. That could well be why Instagram is only testing the feature right now, rather than rolling it out to everyone. Instagram is already one of the best iPhone apps for watching and sharing short videos, despite its ongoing battle with TikTok. Whether this change will improve it or not will likely depend on whether you're watching or posting content.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.