Instagram announced on Friday that it will now let you go back and see your previously watched Reels thanks to a new Watch History feature. Rival TikTok has had a similar Watch History feature for a few years now.
With the new feature, you can go back and find videos you might not have had the chance to save. For example, you could be watching an interesting Reel and then receive a phone call, accidentally close the app, or get distracted by something else and lose your place in the Reels feed.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained the new tool, stating it is designed to help users find Reels they have seen but cannot locate. To access it, you go to your Profile, then under Settings and Your Activity, you will find the new Watch History section where you can see every Reel you have ever watched.
Just like on TikTok, you can sort your Watch History by date, the past week or month, or a specific date range. You also have the option to remove Reels from your watch history if you choose. Instagram’s Watch History offers a bit more flexibility when compared to TikTok’s, as you can sort videos in chronological or reverse chronological order, or by author.
Instagram says the feature was highly requested among users. Before this, users had found workarounds to recover lost videos, such as downloading their data from the app and sifting through it to retrieve their watch history. The new feature makes the process of finding lost videos a lot simpler and eliminates the need for these sorts of workarounds. It also brings the Instagram Reels viewing experience on par with TikTok’s.
Since its launch as a TikTok competitor, Meta has been building out Instagram Reels with features that are already available on the popular short-form app. Most recently, Instagram started allowing creators to connect multiple Reels in a series and launched support for Picture-in-Picture viewing, both of which are already available on TikTok.