Instagram updates its Map feature to make it easier to tell if you’re sharing your location

Instagram announced^[1] on Monday that it’s updating its Map feature to make it easier to see whether you’re sharing your location. The social network also announced that it’s launching the Snap Map-like feature to users in India, following the initial rollout to users in the United States and Canada^[2] in August.

When the feature first launched, it caused widespread confusion, with numerous social media posts^[3] urging users to turn off location sharing, incorrectly claiming^[4] it was enabled by default. At the time, Instagram head Adam Mosseri reassured users that their location is only visible to others if they decide to share it.

Now, two months later, Instagram is adding a more prominent indicator at the top of the Map to remind users whether or not they’re sharing their location, or if they have their device location off entirely. There’s also a new indicator that appears under their profile photo in the Notes tray on the DMs page that clarifies if they’re not sharing your location.

Additionally, users initially believed that tagging a location in their posts meant they were sharing their real time location on the Map, as their profile picture would appear over the content. However, this isn’t the case as the feature simply pulls in posts with location tags. To reduce confusion, Instagram has now removed profile photos from Map content to make it clear that it does not indicate someone’s current location.

Instagram is also going to display an educational reminder notifying users that when they add a location tag to a story, Reel, or post, it will popular on the Map. It’s worth noting that this isn’t exactly new, as Instagram already had location tags visible to users in its map view. 

And to make it even clearer, Instagram will now show a preview to show users how their content will look on the Map when they add a location to Instagram content.

With its new Map feature, Instagram copied yet another popular feature from Snapchat, after cloning the app’s core Stories functionality back in 2016^[5].

When Instagram first announced the feature, it said it’s designed to make it easier for friends to coordinate and link up for hangouts. It also lets users explore location-based content that their friends and favorite creators have shared or engaged with.

Regardless of whether you choose to share your location, you can use the map to explore location-based content, Instagram said.