Some Instagram users are experiencing an issue where the ‘Reels’ tab has gone missing or disappeared and has been replaced with the ‘notifications’ button.
Instagram places a lot of importance on ‘Reels’, which has its own dedicated tab or section that can be accessed easily by tapping the button. Upon touching the ‘Reels’ button, users can view short videos that are tailored to their profile activity, such as likes and saved posts.
Reports of Instagram Reels button suddenly disappeared or missing and replaced with notifications button
A number of Instagram users have recently reported that the ‘Reels’ button has vanished and has been replaced with the ‘notifications’ button.
The reels button is missing and I can't watch reels.@instagram pic.twitter.com/8Vr8KmS8oV
— Ferroitsjames (@tifosihamilton) March 3, 2023
As a result, affected users are currently unable to access the ‘Reels’ tab, and can only view ‘Reels’ from accounts they follow, which are located at the top of the user interface.
A user reported on Reddit about the issue: “Very buggy Instagram – No Reels section, no post insights, follower count stuck. This suddenly happened 3 days ago, in my account the Reels button disappeared, the post insights for each post also disappeared, and the follower and followed count is stuck.”
Another Redditor wrote about their Reel button that has gone missing and said they can’t scroll through reels either.
“As mentioned, in my account the reel button is gone and has been replaced by the notification button, I still can get reels through the main page but I can only watch that one reel and can’t scroll to watch more,” they posted.
@instagram I have reported multiple times about the Instagram bug or issue m facing but I think Instagram don’t even bother to take care of his user.. my reel button is missing and I am not able to watch reels which I was to usually do in my times. Is it going to get fix or not ?
— Veer Singh (@Itsme_Veersingh) March 2, 2023
Potential workaround to temporarily resolve the issue
It is important to note that the problem occurs randomly in certain accounts. One user whose ‘Reels‘ button disappeared attempted to create a new account and found that the button was present in it.
Moreover, the glitch only appears to be impacting the primary Instagram app, not Instagram Lite or the website. Therefore, a workaround to recover the Reels tab is to use Instagram Lite or the web version.
“The only way I found to fix this was to just use Instagram lite,” the user suggested.
As of now, the Instagram team has not yet officially acknowledged this issue that has been going on for months.
