Instagram Direct Now Supports Sharing Photos in Landscape Orientation and Link Previews

Instagram on Thursday introduced two new features to its Direct messaging service, bringing support for landscape and portrait photo/ video orientations along with the ability to send website links. In addition, the users will also be able to see links automatically generated for phone numbers and addresses sent via Instagram Direct.

The support for links in Instagram Direct is now available on Android and iOS with an update to version 10.22, but the landscape/portrait mode support is only available on iOS, with the Android support 'coming soon.'

Earlier, you could not send your preferred photo or video in its original orientation to your friends using Instagram Direct. The photo or video had to be cropped down to a square shape, until the new update, which now lets you choose any photo or video in portrait or landscape orientation and send without any worries. It comes as a relief to users who had their photos and videos cropped in Instagram Direct.

Another significant feature that has been added is the support for website preview links. A messaging feature without having a support for website links sharing is quite unacceptable in today's times. Instagram Direct will now let you share website links with previews available directly in the thread. Apart from that, any phone number or address sent as an Instagram Direct message will automatically become a link to take actions like calling, sending SMS, etc.

Facebook-owned Instagram introduced Direct as an effort to bring native messaging support and private photo sharing in 2013. Since then, the Instagram Direct has received a multitude of features including a few inspired from the rival photo-chat app Snapchat. "Since introducing the new Instagram Direct in April, we've been excited to give people more ways to have fun, visual conversations. We'll continue to make improvements to Instagram Direct throughout the year," said the company in a blog post.

Recently, Instagram introduced an Archive option to hide your unwanted photo posts from your feed and searchable stories using locations and hashtags associated with them.