Instagram Testing New Feature That Will Allow Users to Order Feed by ‘Favorites’

Instagram is reportedly working on a new feature that would allow users to categorize accounts as “Favorites.”

Mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi took to Twitter this week to tease the potential update, sharing a pair of screenshots that explain how the feature would work. 

According to Paluzzi, Favorites would appear in the user’s settings under a tab with the same name. From there, users can choose which followers they want to add to this section. Any accounts set as a Favorite will appear higher in the feed, regardless of their popularity or other signals used by the algorithm.

“Only you can see who’s on your list,” another screenshot reads. “Accounts on your favorites list won’t be notified when you add or remove them.”

The news arrives just three months after Instagram head Adam Mosseri revealed in a June blog post how the app ranks a user’s feed and stories. 

“We start by defining the set of things we plan to rank in the first place,” Mosseri wrote. “With Feed and with Stories this is relatively simple; it’s all the recent posts shared by the people you follow. There are a few exceptions, like ads, but the vast majority of what you see is shared by those you follow.”

“Next we take all the information we have about what was posted, the people who made those posts, and your preferences,” he added. “We call these “signals”, and there are thousands of them. They include everything from what time a post was shared to whether you’re using a phone or the web to how often you like videos.”

Mosseri continued, “The most important signals across Feed and Stories, roughly in order of importance, are: Information about the post; Information about the person who posted; Your activity; and your history of interacting with someone.”