Six years after the feature came to the mobile app, Instagram has finally added the ability to send direct messages to the web app.
As Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced in a recent Twitter post, starting today, Instagram will be rolling out its Direct messaging feature to the desktop site, meaning you can finally respond to DMs from the web app as well.
For those of you into your DMs, today we start to test Direct on the desktop web. Now, it’s only a small percentage of people for now — we need to make sure it works well — but we hope to bring this to everyone soon.https://t.co/x0toGW66Bp
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) January 14, 2020
The Direct Messaging feature for the web has been in testing for quite a few years now. In February 2019 as well, a backend code in the Instagram web app showed that the feature was being played with.
DMs, but make them desktop. 👍
We’re currently testing Direct messaging on the web, so you can read and reply to your messages from wherever you are. pic.twitter.com/VJ06EpETxG
— Instagram (@instagram) January 14, 2020
The feature on the web app will pretty much work the same way as it does on the mobile app. According to The Verge, you can start new conversations, respond to existing messages, and share photos from the web. You will also be able to receive desktop DM notifications if you enable notifications for the entire Instagram site in your browser. Instagram says it’ll “continue to iterate” on this during the test.
Messaging is an important aspect of Mark Zuckerberg's vision for all Facebook platform. Last year he said that the company plans to eventually allow Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram users to message each other, regardless of the platform they’re using.