Instagram Adds Emoji Shortcuts Bar for Quick Comments

Instagram‘s latest update makes emojis more accessible to every user.

According to a new report from The Verge, Instagram has now added personalized emoji shortcuts to its app, placing your most used emojis above your keyboard.

Essentially, the Facebook-owned company has rolled out an emoji shortcut bar, placed above the text field, that will display the emojis that you use most often, allowing users to access their favorite emojis with ease, without the need for additional taps or digging through menus.

The new shortcut bar is available only via the comments icon under a post. It won’t pop up when you use the “add a comment” space or other areas where the keyboard is used. This means you won’t be able to access it when captioning your own posts or sending a message.

To see the Instagram emoji bar, users should update to the latest version of the app. However, a selection of Instagrammers may have been part of a test group that has already been using the feature. Whether you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing, expect to see a greater number of comments using emoji than before.

The feature has been in testing since May, but was unlocked for a wider rollout on Thursday last week, and should now be available to all users on both iOS and Android.

That feeling when your favorite emojis are right in front of you ?? pic.twitter.com/QPF8eGc5yD

— Instagram (@instagram) September 6, 2018