• by Colin Kirkland , August 7, 2025

“Friends Map” – Instagram’s newest feature – takes on Snapchat’s long-running in-app map, which it uses to show people where their friends are in real time, and promote brick-and-mortar shopping experiences.

Instagram’s Friends Map is available on the platform’s Notes feed at the top of users’ inboxes, making it easy to find out where friends who have opted into the feature are at any moment.

“You can opt into sharing your last active location with friends you pick, and you can turn it off anytime,” Instagram says, describing it as a new way for users to connect with their followers, friends, while discovering content tagged to any specific location via Reels, posts, Stories and Notes. 

However, unlike Snap Map, which showcases users’ location whether the app is open or not, Instagram’s clone feature only updates users’ real-time location when the app is open.

In deciding to integrate Friends Map, Instagram has likely followed the growing success of Snap Map, which now has over 400 million monthly active users and is especially popular among Gen Z audiences. Snap Map was opened over 40 billion times last quarter by about 400 million users.

Notably, Instagram developed its own Stories feature based on Snapchat’s own Stories feature almost a decade ago; Instagram has been testing its own Map feature since 2023 and teased a live test of the map last August.

It will be interesting to see if Instagram chooses to use its Friends Map as a new advertising channel as Snap has begun to do.

For example, to drive in-store purchases during the back-to-school shopping push, American Eagle stores are being featured on the Snap Map, giving users the ability to locate local stores while also remotely checking a store’s summer arrivals, Stories, and Spotlight content from the company, creators, and other users.

Instagram’s Friends Map has launched in the United States and will soon roll out globally, the Meta-owned company says.