You no longer need the Instagram mobile app to access your DMs and Lives.

Instagram is rolling out two new features to the web version of its service: Your direct messaging inbox and Instagram Live. The two additions should help those of you who prefer to use laptops during downtime or perhaps constantly lose your phone and need your Instagram fix.

How to find your Instagram direct messages

It's almost surprising we haven’t been able to access our direct messages from a web browser, considering how long the service has been around at this point. Instagram said that the browser-based version of direct messages look and work much like they do on your phone.

  1. To access the Instagram inbox, go to the Instagram website and log in to your account.
  2. At the top right, you'll see the messaging icon in the menu bar.
  3. Click the messaging icon to access your inbox and messages.

Instagram direct messages are in the process of rolling out on the web, so you might not have access yet. 

How to find Instagram Lives

All we can say is: It's about time.

We are living through a pandemic but also a golden era of musicians, actors, and comedians performing straight from their own kitchens and living rooms using tools like Instagram Live.  Having Live on the desktop improves the experience, by taking the constant stream of emojis and comments that take up part of the screen on your phone and pushing them to the side so that they’re separated from the live broadcast.

  1. To find Live feeds, go to the Instagram website and log in to your account.
  2. Go to the Instagram Stories feed on your homepage.
  3. If anyone you follow is broadcasting, they’ll appear as “Live” to the right of the feed.

You still can’t publish anything from your desktop, however, which means you also can’t start a live broadcast from your browser. Still, at a time when people are checking their notifications from a desktop browser more than normal, it doesn’t hurt to bring partial functionality to the web.