Instagram’s innovative Map feature is now officially rolling out across India, offering users an exciting new way to connect. This update allows you to effortlessly share your most recent active location with selected friends or groups, and dive into a world of geo-tagged posts, Reels, Stories, and Notes. First introduced in limited regions back in August, the feature now arrives in India with significant enhancements to its privacy controls, giving you greater command over your visibility.
Enhanced Location Control and Clear Indicators
This new location-based functionality, confirmed to be available for both iOS and Android smartphones in India, marks a significant step for Instagram. While the rollout may be phased, ensuring it reaches all accounts soon, users have full control. If you wish to disable the feature entirely, you can simply adjust the location permission settings for the Instagram app on your smartphone.
The Map feature empowers you with granular control over your sharing preferences. You can precisely choose who sees your location, specify areas where sharing is blocked, or even turn it off completely. For parents overseeing teen accounts, a new notification system alerts them when location sharing is activated, allowing for better management of permissions.
Beyond sharing, the Map is a discovery hub. Explore Reels, Stories, Notes, and posts tagged with locations by your friends and favorite creators. Content on the Map remains visible for 24 hours and is easily accessible directly from your DM inbox icon.
To ensure maximum clarity and reduce any potential confusion, Instagram has integrated several key improvements with this rollout. A clear, persistent indicator at the top of the Map instantly shows whether location sharing is active or inactive. Similarly, an indicator beneath your profile photo in the Notes tray will signal when your location is not being shared. Crucially, profile photos will no longer appear directly over tagged content, preventing any false assumptions about someone’s live location.
Further boosting transparency, the update includes an educational reminder. This explains that adding a location tag to any Story, Reel, or Post will place it on the Map. Users now also have the added benefit of previewing how their tagged content will appear before it’s published, ensuring complete confidence and clarity in every share.