Instagram Scrapping ‘Direct,’ Its Standalone Direct Messaging App

Instagram will be closing the doors on its standalone messaging app, Direct, within the next month.

Direct was originally unveiled in 2017 as a camera-first app that had more than a passing resemblance to Snapchat. At the time, a company spokesperson said that “Direct has grown within Instagram over the past four years, but we can make it even better if it stands on its own.”

Now, according to a new report from TechCrunch, it appears Direct is gone before it ever really lived but the reasons for the reversal aren’t immediately clear. Direct for Instagram seemed to be following the same trajectory as Messenger, which parent company Facebook spun out of the Facebook app back in 2014.

TechCrunch first saw a message about the app closing down by way of a tweet from Direct user Matt Navarra: “In the coming month, we’ll no longer be supporting the Direct app,” Instagram notes in the app itself. “Your conversations will automatically move over to Instagram, so you don’t need to do anything.”



According to the notification, Instagram claims that all the messages in the Direct app will simply be moved over to Instagram and that no action will be required on your part. This means that you can simply open Instagram and start chatting with your friends without skipping a beat.

There is no word on when the app is expected to officially shut down, but the fact that these messages are making their rounds, it probably will be soon, so time to start migrating if you haven’t done so already.

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