Help Center

Send disappearing photos or videos in chats on Instagram

You can send a disappearing photo or video to others in chats on Instagram. The photo or video is no longer visible to the person that received it after they’ve viewed the content, unless you've allowed a replay of it.

Send a disappearing photo or video

To send a disappearing photo or video:

Tap or in the top right of Feed.
Tap a chat from your Chats list or start a new chat.
Tap in the bottom left.
You can choose to:
- Take a photo or video. Tap the circle at the bottom of the screen to take a photo or tap and hold the circle to record a video.
- Upload a picture or video from your device. Tap the image icon in the bottom left of the screen to choose a photo or video from your device.
Customize your photo or video by adding text, a drawing or GIF.
Before sending the photo or video, tap the icon in the bottom left of your screen to:
- Select View Once to let the person or group receiving your photo or video only view it once.
- Select Allow Replay to loop your photo or video and to let the recipient open and replay your photo or video one more time before it disappears.
- Select Keep in Chat to keep a preview image of the photo or video visible in the chat thread.
Tap Send in the bottom right.

Keep in mind

You can only send disappearing photos or videos to people who follow you or have already approved messages from you.
You can't view your disappearing photos or videos after you've sent them in a chat, but you can see if they were seen or if we detect someone took a screenshot.
When you send other message types using Instagram Direct (example: posts from Feed, text, hashtags), those messages don't disappear and will remain visible in the conversation.

Learn how to also turn on vanish mode in your chat to send disappearing messages, photos, videos and other content.