Most Instagram updates arrive loudly, new buttons, pop ups or prompts asking you to react. The Favourites option does the opposite. It changes your feed without demanding attention. In a platform overwhelmed by content and algorithmic guesswork, this feature quietly restores relevance. It is not about seeing more posts, it is about seeing the right ones before they disappear under noise.

Private Signals, Real Control

Instagram usually forces users to signal importance publicly including likes, comments and shares. Favourites, removes that performance layer entirely. You can add or remove accounts without notifying them, without leaving a trail. No one sees your list. This privacy allows honest curation, free from social pressure, obligation or the fear of offending someone by engagement patterns.

How Favourites Work

Adding accounts is deliberately friction light. Users can open their profile menu, scroll down to Favourites, then search for accounts you want to add to your list. Accounts can also be added directly from a profile under the “Following” option. The list is editable at any time, totally reinforcing it as a flexible preference system, not a permanent label. But the 50 accounts cap forces restraint. This is not passive following, it is deliberate selection, designed to reflect real priorities.

Feed Ranking Advantage

The biggest problem on Instagram is not missing content, it is seeing it too late. Posts that matter lose value when surfaced hours later. Once accounts are marked as favourites, their new posts appear higher in the main feed and in a separate Favourites view, ensuring relevance is preserved when timing actually matters.

Attention Control Tool

Favourites is not a productivity feature, it is an attention filter. By narrowing the priority layer of the feed, it reduces mental clutter and endless scanning. Users spend less time deciding what deserves attention and more time engaging with content that already does. The feed becomes calmer, intentional and even easier to exit.

Why Favourites Matter 

Instagram is built to be loud, reactive and infinite. The Favourites feature succeeds because it is none of those things. It does not notify, announce or reward. It simply prioritises quietly. In a platform designed to capture attention, the most powerful update is the one that lets users decide where their attention goes and then steps back.