New Instagram update: Confusion as new swipe-left feed reverts back to scrolling for users

Huge change appears to have been rolled out to everybody at once

Instagram users are seeing an entirely new feed – and then seeing it disappear all over again.

The company has rolled out perhaps its biggest ever change, completely altering the way its feed works. Users now swipe sideways to look at new posts, rather than scrolling downwards, in a major alteration.

The change has inspired fury among almost everyone who has received it, which appeared to happen in one big alteration.

But now some people are seeing it disappear all over again, and revert back to the upwards scrolling.

Unusually for Instagram, the feature was pushed out to everybody all at once. Usually, and especially with such major changes, the company will show the change to a small number of users and then gradually roll it out to others if successful.

This time around, almost everyone got the update within a matter of minutes. If people weren't seeing it when they opened their app, force quitting and scrolling around appeared to prompt the app to update.

But now some users report that the change has switched back, with the feed going upright all over again. It's not clear whether that is a bug – or whether the rollout itself had happened by accident, or early.

Instagram had clearly meant for the update to go live at some point, since an instructional card popped up to explain that the change had been made and what users now had to do.

There doesn't appear to be any way to make the feed change back. Instagram is not giving the option to revert to the old feed, even temporarily.