Instagram UI when sharing reels now shows random people

Update 24/05/25 – 10:13 am (IST): It seems the bug is back to ruin the Reel sharing fun. Hundreds of users have been reporting on platforms like Reddit and X that their share list shows random accounts when trying to share Reels instead of the accounts they most frequently interact with. I can confirm the same on my end. Earlier today, I tried sharing a Reel and noticed the people that popped up at the top are ones that I almost never interacted with. The worst part is that even after you start sharing Reels with a particular contact, their name still doesn’t necessarily come back up on top.

Instagram is yet to issue an official statement regarding the widespread bug. Let’s hope a fix arrives sooner rather than later. In the meantime, you’ll simply have to search for the account you wish to share Reels with instead of scrolling through the list manually.

Original article published on August 2,  2024, follows:

A new update to Instagram has caused a stir among users, as it has made it more difficult to share reels with friends. Since the update on July 29, users on both Android and iOS are finding their most-shared contacts missing from the top of their lists, replaced by people they barely interact with.

Previously, the sharing screen would show a list of your most recent contacts, making it easy to find the people you wanted to share with. However, the new update now shows a list of all of your followers, which can be overwhelming and time-consuming to sort through.

This change has caused a lot of frustration among users, as it has made it more difficult to share reels with the people they want to share with. Reddit has several threads with hundreds of upvotes and comments from users complaining about the change, and some have even threatened to stop using Instagram altogether. These sentiments have also been echoed by other Instagram users on X.

Instagram has not yet commented on the issue, but it is hoped that they will release a fix soon. In the meantime, users can try a workaround by clearing the cache and data of the Instagram app, or by reinstalling the app.

This is not the only issue that Instagram users are currently dealing with. We recently highlighted the broken copy and paste function on iOS and the issue with accounts that have been disabled by mistake, which the company is looking into. This latest change further adds to the growing annoyances Instagram users are dealing with, as it makes it more difficult to share reels with friends.

At the moment, it’s unclear whether this is a glitch or an intended change. But hopefully, Instagram will learn from its mistakes and make sure that future updates are more user-friendly.