If you hear soft whimpers in the gentrified areas of your city today or the pitter patter of hands on payments its because the community managers of the world are crying with joy or doing cartwheels in the streets over the announcement that the darling of image sharing, Instagram, has added support for multiple accounts.
In other words, if you have more than one Instagram account — or have to look after more than one, like a personal account, another for work and a third for your OOTD (outfit of the day) posts — it’ll soon be possible to switch between them without needing to log out each time. Which also means you can focus on your sock-and-hoserie combinations instead of on remembering myriad passwords, which may or may not include the name of your first pet, your lucky number and a capital letter.
We say “soon” because the feature is being rolled out this week for iOS and Android as part of Instagram version 7.15. At time of writing it’s out for iOS, but not yet for Android, so keep an eye on Google Play.
Once you’ve got the requisite, latest, greatest, shiniest version of Instagram you’ll be able to tap the cog (iOS) or three vertical dots (Android) at the top right of your profile page, scroll to the bottom and add accounts. Once you’ve done so, tapping your username will make it a cinch to do the old switcheroo between them.
You can add up to five accounts, but do try and remember that’s an option, not a target. The world probably doesn’t need an account dedicated to your daily fruit intake, screenshots of you and your bestie’s Snapchats or the animals you see in cloud formations. Okay, maybe the cloud animals.
To try and help you ensure you don’t accidentally post a sozzled selfie to your ad agency employer’s feed, you’ll start seeing your profile picture showing up all over Instagram, like when you’re posting, or commenting, or anything else that could get you in trouble if done from the wrong account. Besides, drunken selfies are meant for Instagram’s parent company Facebook’s service. Like, duh.
Once you’ve added multiple accounts you’ll get notifications from whichever of them have notifications enabled, and they’ll be marked with the corresponding username upfront so you know which are which.
