(Credit: Shutterstock / Primakov)
Instagram is testing a profile grid layout that will show photos as rectangles versus squares.
Instagram Head Adam Mosseri teased the grid update in a Story. As The Verge notes, Mosseri argued that the square layout is "from way back in the day" when IG only supported square photos. But now, "the vast majority of what is uploaded to Instagram today is vertical...and cropping it down to square is pretty brutal."
The app added support for portrait and landscape orientations in 2015.
Mosseri acknowledged that some people work hard to line up photos in their grids with specific messages and colors. "But I would really like to do better by the content today," he said. "I’m hoping we can figure out a way to manage this transition."
For now, this is just a limited test, so it won't roll out to everyone. But you can get a taste for what Mosseri is talking about by going to the video tab of a profile, where the clip previews already display as rectangles. One of users selected for the trial also posted a screenshot on Threads.
This is not the first time we’ve heard about a rectangle-style grid. In 2022, mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi said Instagram was "working on a setting to change the aspect ratio of your profile grid between 4:5 and square format." Two years later, it might finally be happening.