Instagram Rolls Out Watch History for Reels

Instagram has added a long-requested feature to its short-form video experience, allowing users to view their full history of watched Reels. The new “Watch History” function, announced by Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Friday, gives users the ability to revisit videos they’ve previously watched – a capability that TikTok users have had for several years.

The feature addresses a common frustration among users who accidentally lose track of videos while scrolling. “Have you ever tried to get back to a reel that you’d seen on Instagram and you just can’t find it?” Mosseri said in a video posted to his broadcast channel. “Well, there is a new feature that should help. If you go to ‘Profile’ and under ‘Settings,’ under ‘Your Activity,’ there’s Watch History now, so you can see every reel that you’ve ever watched.”

Available under the “Your Activity” section in settings, Watch History allows users to sort Reels by date – whether that’s the past week, past month, or a custom date range. Users can also filter the list chronologically or by creator and remove any clips they no longer want to appear.

The move is part of Instagram’s broader effort to bring feature parity with TikTok, its most direct competitor in short-form content, as well as other video platforms such as YouTube. Reels was initially launched in 2020 as Meta’s answer to TikTok, and since then, the company has steadily rolled out similar tools. Recent updates include support for Picture-in-Picture playback and the ability for creators to link multiple Reels together into a single narrative series – both mirroring popular TikTok functions.

Before the launch of Watch History, Instagram users had resorted to manual methods to recover lost videos, such as downloading their entire activity data from the platform or searching browser caches. The new addition simplifies that process while improving overall engagement and retention within the Reels ecosystem.