Instagram on Friday announced an update to DMs, its direct message inbox, that will improve the experience for those who receive a lot of incoming messages, such as. B. YouTubers and influencers. Now the app is introducing tools that allow users to sort and filter their “message requests” – the messages that don't arrive in their main inbox – based on user-specified controls.

The new tools give users the ability to sort and filter these message requests by follower count, verified accounts, brands, creators and other factors. This helps the creator better identify the higher priority messages that may merit a response based on their impact on the creator's business and relationships.

Additionally, a new Story Replies folder will be added to make story replies accessible in one place.

The company said the changes are being rolled out after hearing from creators around the world about how difficult managing their DMs can be.

“When you go to the requests inbox now, it can be really overwhelming at times,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a post on the social network. “So we've added ways to filter out those queries to only see the ones you're looking for,” he continued. “There is still a lot of work to be done to improve the creator and request inbox,” Mosseri admitted. “But hopefully this is a step in the right direction.”

Sorting and filtering options appear in an overlay above the inbox. Users can sort requests by their recency or by the sender's number of followers, highlighting messages that may come from other creators. Brands learn about business deals. Additionally, they can enable or disable other options to further narrow the display based on factors such as: B. whether the account is verified, a company, a creator account, an account with a certain number of subscribers, and more.

Instagram says it will continue to invest in DMs over time.

The changes follow other inbox-related improvements Meta made to WhatsApp earlier this week, which now allows users to filter their chats by custom lists.