Threads is testing a new feature that makes it easy to share long-form text on the social network, Meta confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The feature lets users attach a single block of text to a post instead of creating a thread of several different posts when they want to share more in-depth thoughts and ideas.
App researcher Radu Oncescu first spotted the new “text attachment” feature on iOS and shared a screenshot of it. According to the app’s description, the feature is designed to allow users to attach longer text and get creative with styling tools to share deeper thoughts, news snippets, book excerpts, and more.
The ability to share long-form content could help Threads retain creators and writers who want more distribution for articles that would otherwise be posted on their blogs or newsletter platforms like Substack. This feature also eliminates the need for workarounds, such as sharing a screenshot of text from a Notes app, when a user wants to share content that goes beyond the standard word limit for posts.
A Threads user shared a post using the feature to show what it looks like to viewers. A snippet of the long-form text is displayed in a gray box within the post, which people can then click on to read and scroll through the full content.
Threads competitor X already offers a way for users to share long-form content on the platform with “Articles.” While X’s feature is only available for Premium subscribers, Threads’ feature is currently accessible to everyone, though that could change in the future. Additionally, Threads only allows users to share text, whereas X’s feature lets people incorporate images and videos. Since the Threads feature is still in the testing phase, it is possible that support for multimedia could be added in the future.
Meta says it plans to bring this to more users in the future.
Support for long-form posts is the latest addition among a series of new features Threads has introduced over the past year. These include direct messages, fediverse integrations, custom feeds, AI enhancements, and more.
Threads recently topped 400 million monthly active users just two years since its launch. X, on the other hand, has over 600 million monthly active users, according to previous statements made by its former CEO.