Instagram began development in San Francisco as Burbn, a mobile check-in app created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. On March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $500,000 (equivalent to $682,200 in 2023) seed funding round with Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn.^[10]^[11] Realizing that it was too similar to Foursquare, they refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a popular feature among its users.^[12]^[13] They renamed it Instagram, a portmanteau of instant camera and telegram.^[14]

2010–2011: Beginnings and major funding

Josh Riedel joined the company in October as Community Manager,^[15] Shayne Sweeney joined in November as an engineer,^[15] and Jessica Zollman joined as a Community Evangelist in August 2011.^[15]^[16]

The first Instagram post was a photo of South Beach Harbor at Pier 38, posted by Mike Krieger at 5:26 p.m. on July 16, 2010.^[17]^[13] On October 6, 2010, the Instagram iOS app was officially released through the App Store. In February 2011, it was reported that Instagram had raised $7 million (equivalent to $9,357,057 in 2023) in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo.^[18] The deal valued Instagram at around $20 million. In April 2012, Instagram raised $50 million (equivalent to $65,610,000 in 2023) from venture capitalists with a valuation of $500 million (equivalent to $656,100,000 in 2023).^[19] Joshua Kushner was the second largest investor in Instagram's Series B fundraising round, leading his investment firm, Thrive Capital, to double its money after the sale to Facebook.^[20]

2012–2014: Additional platforms and acquisition by Facebook

On April 3, 2012, Instagram released a version of its app for Android phones,^[21]^[22] and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day.^[23] The Android app has since received two significant updates: first, in March 2014, which cut the file size of the app by half and added performance improvements;^[24]^[25] then in April 2017, to add an offline mode that allows users to view and interact with content without an Internet connection. At the time of the announcement, it was reported that 80% of Instagram's 600 million users were located outside the U.S., and while the aforementioned functionality was live at its announcement, Instagram also announced its intention to make more features available offline, and that they were "exploring an iOS version". On April 9, 2012, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) bought Instagram for $1 billion (equivalent to $1,312,000,000 in 2023) in cash and stock,^[26]^[27]^[28] with a plan to keep the company independently managed.^[29]^[30]^[31] Britain's Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14, 2012,^[32] and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its investigation, allowing the deal to proceed.^[33] On September 6, 2012, the deal between Instagram and Facebook officially closed with a purchase price of $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock.^[34]

The deal closed just before Facebook's scheduled initial public offering according to CNN.^[31] The deal price was compared to the $35 million Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005.^[31] Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram independently."^[31] According to Wired, the deal netted Systrom $400 million.^[35]

In November 2012, Instagram launched website profiles, allowing anyone to see user feeds from a web browser with limited functionality,^[36] as well as a selection of badges, and web widget buttons to link to profiles.^[37]

Since the app's launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging. In March 2014, Instagram started to test and switch the technology to use Facebook Places.^[38]^[39]

2015–2017: Redesign and Windows app

In June 2015, the desktop website user interface was redesigned to become more flat and minimalistic, but with more screen space for each photo and to resemble the layout of Instagram's mobile website.^[40]^[41]^[42] Furthermore, one row of pictures only has three instead of five photos to match the mobile layout. The slideshow banner^[43]^[44] on the top of profile pages, which simultaneously slide-showed seven picture tiles of pictures posted by the user, alternating at different times in a random order, has been removed. In addition, the formerly angular profile pictures became circular.

In April 2016, Instagram released a Windows 10 Mobile app, after years of demand from Microsoft and the public to release an app for the platform.^[45]^[46] The platform previously had a beta version of Instagram, first released on November 21, 2013, for Windows Phone 8.^[47]^[48]^[49] The new app added support for videos (viewing and creating posts or stories, and viewing live streams), album posts and direct messages.^[50] Similarly, an app for Windows 10 personal computers and tablets was released in October 2016.^[51]^[52] In May, Instagram updated its mobile website to allow users to upload photos, and to add a "lightweight" version of the Explore tab.^[53]^[54]

On May 11, 2016, Instagram revamped its design, adding a black-and-white flat design theme for the app's user interface, and a less skeuomorphistic, more abstract, "modern" and colorful icon.^[55]^[56]^[57] Rumors of a redesign first started circulating in April, when The Verge received a screenshot from a tipster, but at the time, an Instagram spokesperson simply told the publication that it was only a concept.^[58]

On December 6, 2016, Instagram introduced comment liking. However, unlike post likes, the user who posted a comment does not receive notifications about comment likes in their notification inbox. Uploaders can optionally decide to deactivate comments on a post.^[59]^[60]^[61]

The mobile website allows uploading pictures since May 4, 2017. Image filters and the ability to upload videos were not introduced then.^[62]^[63]

On April 30, 2019, the Windows 10 Mobile app was discontinued, though the mobile website remains available as a progressive web application (PWA) with limited functionality. The app remains available on Windows 10 computers and tablets, also updated to a PWA in 2020.

2018–2019: IGTV, removal of the like counter, management changes

To comply with the GDPR regulations regarding data portability, Instagram introduced the ability for users to download an archive of their user data in April 2018.^[64]^[65]^[66]

IGTV launched on June 20, 2018, as a standalone video application. The application was shut down and removed from app stores in March 2022, citing low usage and a shift to short-form video content.^[67]

On September 24, 2018, Krieger and Systrom announced in a statement they would be stepping down from Instagram.^[68]^[69] On October 1, 2018, it was announced that Adam Mosseri would be the new head of Instagram.^[70]^[71]^[72]

During Facebook F8, it was announced that Instagram would, beginning in Canada, pilot the removal of publicly displayed "like" counts for content posted by other users.^[73] Like counts would only be visible to the user who originally posted the content. Mosseri stated that this was intended to have users "worry a little bit less about how many likes they're getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people that they care about."^[74]^[75] It has been argued that low numbers of likes in relativity to others could contribute to a lower self-esteem in users.^[75]^[73] The pilot began in May 2019, and was extended to 6 other markets in July.^[75]^[76] The pilot was expanded worldwide in November 2019.^[77] Also in July 2019, Instagram announced that it would implement new features designed to reduce harassment and negative comments on the service.^[78]

In August 2019, Instagram also began to pilot the removal of the "Following" tab from the app, which had allowed users to view a feed of the likes and comments made by users they follow. The change was made official in October, with head of product Vishal Shah stating that the feature was underused and that some users were "surprised" when they realized their activity was being surfaced in this manner.^[79]^[80]

In October 2019, Instagram introduced a limit on the number of posts visible in page scrolling mode unless logged in. Until this point, public profiles had been available to all users, even when not logged in. Following the change, after viewing a number of posts a pop-up requires the user to log in to continue viewing content.^[81]^[82]

That month, Instagram launched a separate app known as Threads. Similar to Snapchat, the app allowed users to communicate through messaging and video chats.^[83] It was integrated with Instagram's "Close friends" feature, so that users could send images, photos, and texts privately to others, and also had Instagram's photo editing system embedded into the app.^[84]^[85] However, Instagram discontinued this version of Threads in December 2021,^[86] mainly due to most of its features being rolled out on Instagram itself, as well as low usage compared to other social media applications.^[87] Threads was not well-received among Instagram's user base. Since its launch, only approximately 220,000 users globally downloaded the app, which represented less than 0.1% of Instagram's monthly active users, indicating a lack of success in driving adoption.^[88]

2020–present

In March 2020, Instagram launched a new feature called "Co-Watching". The new feature allows users to share posts with each other over video calls. According to Instagram, they pushed forward the launch of Co-Watching in order to meet the demand for virtually connecting with friends and family due to social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.^[89]

In August 2020, Instagram began a pivot to video, introducing a new feature called "Reels".^[90]^[91]^[92] The intent was to compete with the video-sharing site TikTok.^[92]^[93]^[90] Instagram also added suggested posts in August 2020. After scrolling through posts from the past 48 hours, Instagram displays posts related to their interests from accounts they do not follow.^[94]

In February 2021, Instagram began testing a new feature called Vertical Stories, said by some sources to be inspired by TikTok.^[95] The same month, they also began testing the removal of ability to share feed posts to stories.^[96]

In March 2021, Instagram launched a new feature in which four people can go live at once.^[97] Instagram also announced that adults would not be allowed to message teens who don't follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies.^[98]^[99]^[100]^[101]

In May 2021, Instagram began allowing users in some regions to add pronouns to their profile page.^[102]^[103]

On October 4, 2021, Meta services suffered their worst outage since 2008, bringing down Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.^[104]^[105] Security experts identified the problem as possibly being DNS-related.^[106]

On March 17, 2022, Zuckerberg confirmed plans to add non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to the platform.

In September 2022, Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined the company $402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors.^[107]^[108]^[109]

After being trialled in mid-2022,^[110] Instagram introduced Notes in December 2022. This feature allows users to share updates as short text posts of up to 60 characters with certain people, who can then reply to them using messaging on Instagram.^[111]^[112]

In February 2023, Instagram introduced a new feature allowing users to browse and post GIFs in their comments.^[113] That same month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would start selling blue "verified" badges on Instagram and Facebook.^[114]

On July 5, 2023, Meta launched Threads, a social network platform connected to Instagram that allows users to make public shortform blog posts comprising text, photos, and videos, as well as to converse with other users and reblog other users' posts. Threads aims to compete with Twitter.^[115]^[116]^[117]

In April 2022, Instagram began testing the removal of the ability to see "recent" posts from various hashtags.^[118] This change became permanent and system wide a year later, and now hashtags can only be used to see a selection of curated content from "top" users.^[119] These changes are ostensibly an attempt to hinder the spread of misinformation, while Instagram has also repeatedly stated that hashtags do not help posts get views.^[120]

In April 2024, Instagram announced that they would start testing new tools "within weeks" to fight sextortion, a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online.^[121]

On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after the platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.^[122]^[123]