What are Notes on Instagram?

• Length: up to 60 characters, about one short sentence.
• Where they show: at the top of the inbox in Instagram messaging, and above your profile picture.
• How long: up to 24 hours. Sharing a new note replaces the current one.
• Audience: you choose each time, either followers you follow back or your Close Friends list.
• Reactions: people can like a note or reply to it, and only you can see who did.
• Replies: each one opens a private conversation between you and that person in your DMs.
• Music: a note can carry a song as well, including a track shared from Spotify.

Posting or deleting a note

1. Tap your note bubble at the top of the inbox or on your profile, then tap Leave a new note.
2. Type up to 60 characters and pick the audience.
3. Tap Share. To remove it early, tap the note and choose Delete note.

A note and a Story both last 24 hours, and replies to either arrive as DMs, but they do different jobs. A Story is a full-screen photo or video that followers tap through. A note is one line of text sitting where people look when they open their messages, so a question in a note gets answered in the inbox, by someone who is already in the mood to type.

The audience is also narrower than it first looks. Followers you follow back means mutual follows only, so an account that follows few people, which describes many shops and creators, reaches a small circle with a note. Stories, posts and channels suit announcements meant for every follower.

• Ask a question you’d like answered by DM, such as “Which flavour should we bring back?” Every reply arrives as its own private chat.
• Share same-day news for regulars: “Fresh batch out at 4pm.”
• Draft it before you type it. Sixty characters is shorter than the opening line of most captions.
• Answer the replies. They land in the same inbox as customer messages, so a note that gets 20 replies means 20 chats waiting.

Notes are not the same as community notes. Those are a separate feature on Instagram and Threads, where contributors write and rate notes that add context to posts.