Instagram Introduces Location Sharing Feature: What to Know About Using Instagram Map

How to use Instagram Map and set your location sharing preferences

This week, Instagram introduced a new feature called Instagram Map that allows U.S. users to share their most recent active location with others and discover location-based content. If you decide to turn on your location on Instagram Map, your location only updates when you open the app or have it running in the background, meaning it doesn’t provide continuous, real-time location updates. This is different from Snap Map, which lets users choose whether their location is updated only when they open the app or in real time.

According to Meta, location sharing is turned off by default on Instagram Map. Following concerns around safety, Instagram head Adam Mosseri reassured users that the feature is opt-in and noted that some people are “confused” about how the feature works. For example, users might be accessing the feature and then seeing a map populated with the location information of some users. This is because the feature automatically pulls in location tags from recently posted Stories or Reels that include a tagged location.

Source: techcrunch.com