FOMO keeping you online? This new Instagram feature might fix that

Summary

Instagram is testing a new feature to show you unseen Story Highlights from mutual followers.
The feature only displays Story Highlights, not regular Stories that disappear after 24 hours.
It’s a handy addition to help catch you up on missed content, especially considering the app has a lot of distracting content.

If you follow a variety of accounts on Instagram, it can sometimes be hard to see what your friends or family are posting. Luckily, Instagram seems to be aware of this and a potential fix is in the works.

Instagram is testing a new feature which shows users unseen Story Highlights from their mutual followers (via TechCrunch). If the feature is available to you, it can be found at the end of the Stories tray at the top of the screen in the app. It’s unclear how wide of a rollout this feature has at the moment.

Ahmed Ghanem, a social media expert, first posted what the new Instagram feature looks like on X.

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The feature does have one big limitation

It doesn’t show you regular Stories

Instagram app on phone on colored background

While this feature certainly seems handy for staying up-to-date with what your friends and family are posting on Instagram, it does have a pretty big limitation, naturally, due to how Stories on Instagram work. It will only show Story Highlights that your mutual followers have posted and added to their profile within the past week, not regular Stories that disappear after 24 hours.

So, if your friend posts a story and doesn’t highlight it on their profile, you won’t see it pop up in the new feature at the end of the Stories tray. Even with this limitation, this is still a handy new addition to Instagram. The app has become increasingly cluttered in recent years (thanks, Reels), and missing a story has become more common, at least for me, as I try to use the app less.

Instagram has had a busy year. It recently started testing another feature called Trial Reels and fixed a problem that had been driving me crazy for years. Instagram also added Spotify integration, so you can quickly add a song you found on the app to your liked songs.