Instagram now allows users to like Stories without sending a DM

Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Twitter that users can now like Stories without sending a DM. “The idea here is to make sure that people can express more support for each other, but also to clean up DMs a little bit,” Mosseri said.

“So now, as you go through Stories, between send message and that little paper airplane, there will be a heart icon,”Mosseri explained. “And if you tap on it, it’ll send the author of that story a like, and that like will show up in the viewer sheet, not in your DM thread with them.”

❤️ Private Story Likes ❤️

Starting to roll out today, you can now send some love by liking people’s stories without sending a DM.

Likes on stories are private and do not have counts. Rather, they appear as hearts next to people’s handles in your Stories view sheet. 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/l56Rmzgnnw

— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) February 14, 2022

With the new feature called Private Story Likes, the likes on stories will be private and will not have counts.

“If they want to see all their likes, or if you post a story and you want to see your likes, you can go to the viewer sheet for that story and there will be a little heart icon from any viewer who actually liked that story” Mosseri explained.