Instagram just rolled out a long-awaited update that makes losing your favorite Reels a thing of the past. The platform has introduced a new “Watch History” feature, allowing users to revisit every Reel they’ve previously viewed, a capability TikTok users have enjoyed for years.
The feature is designed for those all-too-common moments when you stumble on a great Reel, get interrupted by a call, accidentally close the app, or simply forget to save it. Now, you can easily retrace your steps.
“Have you ever tried to get back to a reel that you’d seen on Instagram and you just can’t find it?” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in an announcement. “Well, there is a new feature that should help. If you go to Profile → Settings → Your Activity, there’s Watch History now, so you can see every reel that you’ve ever watched.”
Instagram’s Watch History is more flexible than TikTok’s version. Users can sort by date, including the past week or month, or choose a specific date range. You can also remove individual videos from your history, and even sort them in chronological, reverse chronological, or author order.
Until now, users had to rely on clunky workarounds, like downloading their entire Instagram data archive, to recover lost videos. This update finally makes that process seamless and keeps Instagram’s short-form experience competitive with TikTok.
The Watch History rollout follows several recent Reels upgrades, including series linking (letting creators connect multiple Reels together) and Picture-in-Picture viewing, both features that mirror TikTok’s existing tools.
With this addition, Meta continues to fine-tune Instagram Reels into a more complete, and user-friendly, short-form video platform.