Williams Pelegrin
Over the years, I’ve fallen in love with Instagram. I’m not alone—one of my colleagues uses Instagram more than he does his regular texting app. However, I’ve always taken issue with a lack of DMs on Instagram’s website. That’s no longer an issue, as Instagram is bringing DMs to the web starting today.
Before you get too excited, today’s rollout is only a test—only a “small percentage” of people will have access to Instagram DMs from today. Assuming the test goes without too many hitches, a wider roll-out could happen sometime in the future.
According to The Verge, you can create a group or individual chat from the DM page or someone’s profile. You can also send photos from your computer, like a message, see how many unread messages you have, and receive notifications of incoming messages if you enable notifications for Instagram on your browser.
Instagram will “continue to iterate” during the test, so some features might come and go. That said, it seems as if DMs on the web work the same as they do on your phone. To see if you have DMs on the web, go to the Instagram website, and look for the Instagram Direct paper airplane icon on the upper right part of the website.
Unfortunately for iPad owners, Instagram hasn’t yet rolled out DMs to the tablet. Given the lack of a proper Instagram tablet app for the iPad, it appears the feature isn’t a priority for the company. However, there might be a workaround. Once Instagram rolls out DMs on the web to more people, iPad owners could just use the Safari browser and access their DMs. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s better than nothing.
