Instagram Now Allows Users to Like Someone’s Story Without Sending a DM

Instagram has rolled out a nifty update for Stories, which allows users to like a Story without sending a dedicated direct message to another user. The “Private Story Likes” feature allows users to show their love for the Instagram Story content of their friends without cluttering up their DM section.

Instagram Rolls Out Private Story Likes

The new Private Story Likes feature was recently announced by Instagram head Adam Mosseri. In a short video posted on Twitter, Mosseri explained how the feature would work on the platform.❤️ Private Story Likes ❤️Starting to roll out today, you can now send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a DM.Likes on stories are private and do not have counts. Rather, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet. 🙏🏼pic.twitter.com/l56Rmzgnnw— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)February 14, 2022

❤️ Private Story Likes ❤️Starting to roll out today, you can now send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a DM.Likes on stories are private and do not have counts. Rather, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet. 🙏🏼pic.twitter.com/l56Rmzgnnw— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)February 14, 2022

Now, if you are a regular Instagram user, I’m sure you’d know that currently if you like someone’s Story on Instagram, it sends a dedicated message to the user’s DM section, notifying them that you have liked their Story. However, this would change with Private Story Likes.

The Private Story Likes featureallows users to like a person’s Story without sending them a direct message. Mosseri explained that there will be anew “heart” icon, which will appear between the message and forward option in the Stories UI. Users can click on the heart icon to like a Story and it will appear as an independent like on the Story’s viewer sheet.

It is worth mentioning that theStory viewer sheet will not show the cumulative like count of a Storyand is different from an Instagram post’s like counts. It will only show tiny hearts sent by different Instagram users. Mosseri says that “the idea here is to make sure that people can express more support for each other, but also to clean up DMs a little bit.” The feature is a part of Instagram’s focus on the DM section, which is apriority in 2022.

Although Mosseri said that Private Story Likes has started to roll out for the public, it was not available for me on my iOS device at the time of writing this article. Nonetheless, we expect it to be available for users soon. So, if you do not see it, try updating your Instagram app from theGoogle Play Storeor theApp Store. Also, let us know your thoughts about the Private Story Likes feature on Instagram in the comments below.

Dwaipayan Sengupta

A geek at heart, you’ll find me fidgeting with an iOS device or sitting in front of the laptop, scouring the internet to find interesting technological innovations. In my free time, you’d find me playing Valorant or listening to Pink Floyd.

Add new comment

Name

Email ID

Δ

01

02

03

04

05