Adam Mosseri explains how Instagram is bringing back the chronological feed

The return of a proper feed could come soon. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram head Adam Mosseri used his story to answer people’s questions about the company’s plan to bring back the much-missed chronological feed, which he promised during his appearance at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. In a Q&A on Friday, he said that the company is testing out two versions of the feature and that it’s “targeting early next year” as a release window.

One version of the chronological feed would let you “pick your favorites and they show up at the top in chronological order,” he said. The other would let you see the posts from everyone you’re following in chronological order, though he didn’t mention how recommended posts would be interspersed.

Images: Adam Mosseri
Instagram wants to release the feature “early next year.”

When a follow-up question asked Mosseri when the feature would show up, he said it wouldn’t be too long, and that Instagram is “already testing the favorites idea.” He said that “full chronological” mode would come shortly after.

Reiterating a tweet from Instagram on Wednesday, Mosseri makes it clear that the company isn’t ditching its algorithmic feed to revert back to one that’s in order, and that it would be like Twitter where you can choose which version you’d like. “We’re not moving away from ranking altogether. We’re going to give people the option to go to a chronological version of feed,” he said. “But at a high level, we believe that ranking helps us connect people with the content that matters to them most.”

In his Q&A (which you can view in full below), Mosseri also answered questions about Instagram’s plans for its upcoming parental control feature, as well as his time at the Senate. You can read more about his testimony on child safety, where he proposed creating an “industry body” to govern how children’s data is used, here.