Instagram is adding a Reels Watch History feature, finally giving users a way to revisit videos they’ve already seen. The addition addresses one of the platform’s most popular complaints: losing sight of a Reel that you wanted to save, share or return to finish watching.
The tool resides within Your Activity, an area that Instagram uses to centralize its logs about engagement and account controls. Open Profile, tap Settings and then Your Activity to see Watch History, which shows the Reels you’ve already seen in a clear, searchable view.
How to discover your Reels Watch History
Watch History has intuitive filters that reflect how most people prefer to browse. You can organize them by date, switch between the chronological order and reverse-chronological order of your actions, and filter according to creator. There’s also a fast select for the prior week or month, and a custom option that works well for deep dives.
And the big thing: You can delete individual Reels from your collection. That makes it simpler to retain a useful history — ditch the soupy mess of clips you swiped through during a subway ride, but hang on to the tutorial you mean to revisit.
What Instagram’s Watch History does differently from TikTok
Watch History has been available on TikTok since 2022, while YouTube includes Shorts as part of its larger watch history. Instagram’s take brings many of the fine-grained controls that a lot of users have asked for: from author-based sorting to quick toggles for viewing order.
It’s a slight but welcome quality-of-life enhancement. If you get a call midway through or close the app by accident, you don’t have to depend on the algorithm deciding to surface the video again or go hunting for it in your saved items — another action many users forget to take at the time anyway.
Why this update matters for Instagram users and creators
Short-form watching is compulsive and quick, which makes rediscovery surprisingly difficult. Meta has said that video comprises more than half the time spent on its apps, and previous earnings calls have noted that Reels accounts for about one-fifth of the time spent on Instagram. The vulnerable chunk gets smaller, and it is easier for a good clip to be lost.
A usable history helps close the loop in a few ways. Users can find that recipe or travel tip without having to resort to a clunky workaround like downloading their data archive and parsing out viewing logs, which some power users have done. For creators and brands alike, rediscovery can drive engagement and conversions around product demos, tutorials and reviews that may get long-forgotten but often encourage purchases upon a second look.
There’s a retention play there too, but it’s more subtle. Product teams monitor “session recoveries” — when users drop off and come back later to complete a task. Watch History lowers the barrier for returning to a clip, and as such, can boost total watch time without altering the feed-ranking system.
Privacy controls and how your watch data is handled
Instagram’s Watch History is in its place under Your Activity for a reason — it was meant to be user-facing, and therefore manageable. The list is unique to your account and you can delete any videos whenever you want. Clearing an item doesn’t erase a video from Instagram; it just gets rid of your local record that you ever watched it.
Like other engagement signals, watch behavior powers personalization. A little transparency doesn’t alter that dynamic, but it fits with broader privacy expectations by being more “seeable” and “controllable,” priorities of both regulators and consumer advocates.
Part of a wider Reels push with more video features
The Watch History feature fits into a regular rhythm of Reels updates. Most recently, Instagram introduced picture-in-picture for auto-play and the ability to connect multiple Reels into a series — both of which encourage more serialized storytelling with short-form video.
They’ll start rolling out to iOS and Android gradually. If you don’t see Watch History yet, update the app and try again under Your Activity. Once live, it’s one of those low-key additions that immediately becomes indispensable — particularly for anyone who has ever attempted to track down “that one Reel about the one-pan pasta” and come up empty.
Bottom line: It’s a practical catch-up with some smart upgrades on top. For users, it lowers the friction of pulling in videos every day; for creators, it creates a “second chance” funnel at no additional cost; and overall watch time nudges ever so slightly upward — all from small product design with outsize impact.
