On 8 June 2026 Instagram released profile grid reordering worldwide, in the Android and iPhone apps, as Engadget and Tech Times reported. You hold a post, drag it where you want, and the order of the squares becomes yours, without touching the publishing date and without losing anything the post already had.
What changed
The profile grid was always chronological. The newest post went on top and pushed the others down, and the only way around that was deleting the post and uploading it again, or using the three pinned slots. Deleting sent the whole history of that post back to zero.
Now there is a reordering screen. You drag posts into the order you want, as many times as you want, and the post stays the same one for everybody who had already liked or commented.
| Before June 2026 | Now |
|---|---|
| Order always by date | Order chosen by you |
| Delete and repost to move something | Drag the post inside the grid |
| Likes and comments lost on the way | The post keeps everything it had |
| Only pinned posts escaped the date | The whole grid can be rearranged |
How to reorder it, on your phone
- Open your profile in the app.
- Press and hold any post in the grid until the menu appears.
- Tap Reorder grid.
- Drag the posts into the positions you want.
- The order saves right away, and anyone visiting your profile sees the new one, as Social Media Today describes it.
According to Tech Times, that screen has an undo button, which works as a safety net while you are still moving things around. Once you leave, it no longer takes you back, and the fix becomes dragging again.
What this changes if you run a small business
Picture the scene that happens to you every week. Someone asks for a recommendation in a neighbourhood group, your name comes up, and the person opens your Instagram profile before sending you a message. What they see in the first seconds are the nine top thumbnails, and those decide whether they write to you or close the app.
Until June, those nine thumbnails were simply your nine most recent posts. If your week was behind-the-scenes clips and quick notices, that is what a new customer found, even with your best work sitting three months down the grid. Now you choose what stays in front.
It happens. In our reference base, with 476 carousels from 118 niche profiles collected on 8 August 2026, 31 profiles had their most-commented carousel more than three months old. On the profile of an accounting course in Brazil, the most-commented carousel (1,367 comments on the collection date) was from September 2025.
A practical way to think about it: your first nine thumbnails answer before you do. Fill them with what you type over and over when someone asks for the first time: what it costs, how it works, and how someone else's job turned out.
What to do this week
- Open your profile as a stranger would. Look only at the first nine thumbnails and ask whether they explain what you do. Plenty of owners discover here that their whole first row is opening hours.
- Pull your proof posts up. Before and after, finished work, a customer's words, the post that explains the service. That is what answers the doubt of someone deciding whether to call you.
- Use pinned posts for what does not change. Prices, address and how to book fit the three pinned slots, which stay locked at the top.
- Make each row work together. The grid shows three per row, so you can group similar subjects in the same band and the profile becomes easier to read.
What stays the same
- Reordering touches your profile, not the feed. The new order is what people see when they open your profile. According to Tech Times, it does not change how the post ranks in the feed or in Explore.
- Pinned posts still rule the top. Posts you pinned stay locked above the grid and show up blocked on the reordering screen, according to Engadget and Tech Times.
- At launch it was phone only. Tech Times reported that reordering arrived in the Android and iPhone apps, without the desktop version.
- The date does not move. A post from March still shows as March when someone opens it, and its likes and comments stay where they were, according to Tech Times.
If what you want is to reach new people, the grid order helps you convert whoever already arrived, and what brings people in is still publishing regularly. It is worth looking at replacing the audio on a published post, which comes from the same batch of changes, and how to keep up the frequency without burning out.
A tidy-up that pays more than a new post
Rearranging the grid takes a few minutes and changes the first impression of whoever opens your profile from now on, including the people who arrive through a recommendation. It is one of those fixes that pay off without asking you for new content. On what belongs in those first positions, have a look at what makes someone tap follow.
ZapPost delivers the carousel, the Reels script and the caption ready to go. No writing prompts, no Canva, no new tool to learn. You review and publish.
Frequently asked questions
Does reordering the grid delete likes and comments?
No. It is the same publication and it keeps what it had gathered. What changes is its position in your profile grid.
Can I reorder from a computer?
Not at launch. The feature arrived on the phone, on both systems, and as of 18 September 2026 we found no announcement of a desktop version.
If I drag something to the wrong place, can I undo it?
According to Tech Times, while you are on the reordering screen there is an undo button. Once you leave the screen it no longer undoes anything, and you fix it by dragging again.
Does changing the order make a post reach more people?
Reordering changes what someone sees when they open your profile. It does not send the post back into your followers' feed and it is not a reach boost.