Instagram Algorithm: Control Your Feed Now

Instagram Expands Algorithm Control: You Can Now Customize Your Main Feed and Reels with New “Your Algorithm” Tool

Instagram is revolutionizing user agency by expanding its groundbreaking “Your Algorithm” feature to the main feed, allowing users to directly view, add, and remove topics that shape their content recommendations across the app. This major update transforms how users interact with the platform by replacing opaque ranking systems with transparent, AI-generated summaries of interests that can be manually adjusted in real time.

What Is the New “Your Algorithm” Feature?

The “Your Algorithm” tool is an AI-powered interface that displays a summary of the topics Instagram believes you are interested in based on your viewing history, likes, and shares. Users can now type in specific subjects they want to see more or less of, such as “rescue dogs” or “parenting humor,” and the platform adjusts recommendations instantly to reflect these preferences.

Previously restricted to the Reels feed and Explore page since its debut in December 2025, this hub now covers the central feed where users scroll through posts from accounts they follow and recommended content. The feature utilizes large language models to translate complex ranking data into legible categories, enabling manual adjustments for topics, moods, and content types.

How to Access and Use the New Controls

To access the “Your Algorithm” tool in the main feed, users can open Instagram, navigate to the feed settings, and select the algorithm controls icon. The interface presents a list of current interest topics that you can prune or expand by tapping to add new subjects.

For Reels and Explore, the process involves tapping the icon in the upper-right corner, which displays two lines with hearts. Once inside, you can review everything Instagram thinks you are interested in, delete topics you no longer care about, and add fresh ones like “Horror movies” or “Chess.”

• Open the main feed and access settings to find “Your Algorithm”.
• Tap the menu icon in Reels or Explore to launch the tool.
• Add topics you want more of and remove the ones you don’t.
• Tap into a topic to view sample Reels and confirm your choices.
• Changes made in Reels or Explore automatically carry across both surfaces since they share one algorithm.

Restoring User Agency and Transparency

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri framed this launch as a pivotal move to restore user agency and transparency within traditionally opaque social media systems. The update aims to give users more meaningful ways to control what they see by providing direct input into content recommendations and display.

While the current interface strictly supports topic-based changes, the engineering team plans to broaden the scope soon. Future updates will allow users to submit requests for specific creators, distinct moods, vibes, and various content formats beyond just interest-based topics.

Important Limitations of the Current Tool

It is crucial to note that the current “agency” provided by this feature does not apply to users who want to see more posts from accounts they actually follow. The tool works exclusively with interest-based topics, and attempting to request “posts from people I follow” will return an error message stating “no results found.”

Instagram is actively working on supporting these requests for people, different moods, content types, and more. Until then, the feature remains a powerful tool for curating interest-based content but does not override the algorithm for posts from followed accounts.

Conclusion

Instagram’s expansion of the “Your Algorithm” feature to the main feed marks a significant step toward user empowerment, offering unprecedented transparency and control over the content that surfaces in your daily experience. By allowing users to manually shape their interest profile, the platform is leading the way in social media transparency, even as it continues to refine the tool to include broader request types in the future.

As this tool rolls out globally to all English-language users, it promises to redefine how millions interact with the app, turning passive scrolling into an active, curated experience tailored precisely to individual preferences.