Okay, so today I wanna talk about this “half swipe” thing on Instagram. I saw some TikTok videos about it, and I got curious. Basically, it’s a way to sneak a peek at messages and stories without the other person knowing. Sounds kinda sneaky, right? But hey, I had to try it out.

First, I went to my DMs. The trick is to open a chat but swipe up real quick before it fully loads. I did this a few times, and I think it worked. At least I didn’t see that “seen” thing pop up under the messages. So I guess it kinda disables that function.
- Open DM: I went to my Instagram DMs.
- Swipe Up: I quickly swiped up on a chat before it loaded.
- Check for “Seen”: I didn’t see the “seen” notification.
Then, I moved on to stories. This one’s a bit trickier. You have to hold your finger on the screen during a story and then kinda slide to the next one without fully letting go. I tried this a bunch, and honestly, it was hit or miss. Sometimes I felt like I was seeing the next story, sometimes not. It’s hard to tell if it actually works for sure.
- Hold Story: I held my finger on a story.
- Half-Swipe: I tried to slide to the next story without lifting my finger.
- Uncertain Results: It was hard to tell if it really worked.
My Thoughts
After trying it out, I found some posts online saying that half-swipe might not even be working for some people anymore. Apparently, it could be a glitch or something. So who knows if Instagram actually removed it or not.
It seems to me that the feature may be a bug that Instagram is trying to fix, I think it’s a cool trick, but it’s not super reliable, at least for me. Maybe I just need more practice, or maybe it’s just gone. Anyway, it was fun to experiment with, but I wouldn’t rely on it too much.
I feel like that the whole half-swipe thing is a bit of a mystery. It is really hard to get it to work. But if you’re curious, give it a shot and see what happens. Just don’t be surprised if it doesn’t always work the way you expect. I think Instagram is a little bit strange about the whole feature.
