Why Is Instagram Removing Notes? Its CEO Announced Its Removal After Less Than a Year

If you've been on social media long enough, you'll know Instagram has never shied away from changing its rhythm. When the app first launched in October 2010, it was known as the alternative to Facebook albums, allowing users to enjoy photos of random nights out and blooming trees in real time. However, the once simple app decided to become a one-stop content shop and hasn't looked back since.

Within over a decade of being on nearly everyone's phone, Instagram has introduced many features, including Stories, Live Streaming, Reels, Threads, and, in July 2024, Content Notes. Content Notes are short notes you can post to followers (who you follow back) or to your “Close Friends” list. They can be a maximum of 60 characters long. You may have seen them; they sit in your inbox above your direct messages. Instagram Notes, much like Stories, disappear in 24 hours.

After nearly a year of Notes being part of Instagram users' lives for nearly a year, the popular app left one final note announcing the feature would be ending. So, why is Instagram removing notes? Here's everything to know.

Instagram formally announced the decision to remove Notes from posts and reels in March 2025. On March 26, the company's CEO, Adam Mosseri, gave the app's users insight as to why the feature had to go away. In a video posted on his personal account, he explained that while the feature was designed to "try to make Instagram more social and more fun," Instagram's team ultimately realized they had too much dip on their chip.

"We launched it a few months ago, in an effort to try to make Instagram more social and more fun, [but] in practice, it just wasn’t adopted by that many people," Mosseri said. "We know Instagram has become too complicated over the years, and one of the ways we want to address that is by being willing to turn off features that aren’t used by enough, or that many people. And content Notes is one of those features.”

The CEO also said he will continue finding ways to make Instagram more engaging for people who have been searching for ways to be in community with their followers, noting in the Instagram post's caption that Notes "didn’t end up seeing a lot of adoption" when it was introduced to the masses.

"We’ll keep exploring ways to make Instagram more fun and social, but content notes wasn’t it," he explained. "We’re going to keep simplifying Instagram where we can, which inevitably means being willing to turn off features that aren’t widely used. More to come."

While Instagram Notes will no longer be a reels or in-feed feature on the app, fans will still be able to see it on their phone screens in some capacity. Per Social Media Today, the app will continue to be included in DMs, leaving the conversations that happen within the Content Notes feature more private. The news is a positive update for audience members, namely the app's younger crowd, who reportedly enjoyed Notes the most.

Although Instagram isn't getting rid of Notes altogether, the news of its rebrand doesn't sway most of the app's day-one users much. Underneath Mosseri's update on the end of Notes as we know it, several users addressed their ongoing grievances with the app, including its perceived refusal to put the timeline feeds in chronological order.

"More fun and social"?' Please. I beg of you bring back chronological feed and show our posts to our followers," one fan wrote. "That's all we ask. Make it social by showing us posts from the people we follow and stop telling us "you're all caught up" when we know full well that isn't true. Roll it all back to how it was when you launched, to how it was when we fell in love with this lovely new platform and get out of this "doesn't know what it is / Temu Tik Tok". Please. And thank you."

"Let us reach more people… like the old days!" comedian Loni Love wrote.

"It would be great if your followers could actually see your posts regardless of what the “algorithm” thinks," another suggested. "They followed you for a reason."

So far, Instagram hasn't announced any plans to follow through on any of the users' suggestions. In the meantime, many are thankful its Notes feature was short-lived.