With every passing day, messaging on Instagram is starting to resemble WhatsApp.
Just like on Meta’s main chat app, you can share disappearing images and video, stop others from seeing if you’ve read their messages, and even filter your inbox.
Now, Instagram is borrowing another major feature from its sibling: the ability to edit messages.
Say goodbye to typos, because you can fix your missives within 15 minutes of sending them. That’s the same time limit as, you guessed it, WhatsApp. Any later and you’ll have to live with the wretched error or, gasp, send another message.
Could this presage more formatting options for longer messages, like the bullet points and numbered lists WhatsApp recently introduced? We can only hope.
How to edit Instagram messages
Editing a message on Instagram is pretty straightforward: Just press and hold on the bubble and select “edit” from the pop-up menu.
More Instagram editing features
The new option is part of a major Instagram update that can help you organise and customise your messages.
Now, you can pin chats to the top of your inbox, which could be useful for prioritising certain friends and family.
After announcing read receipts late last year, Instagram will now let you turn them on or off for all chats or specific ones. You can find the option in your account settings under “messages and story replies”.
In addition, you can press and hold on stickers to save them. You can also access stickers, GIFs, videos, photos, and voice messages when you reply to a message.
Finally, Instagram is debuting themes for your chats, which are like funky wallpapers that also change the colour of your sent bubbles. The newbies include Love (soon to be animated), Lollipop, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and more.
To use them, tap the chat name at the top of the screen, go into themes and pick one.
