Social media giant Instagram has begun testing a radical change to hashtag usage, a key element of content discovery on the platform. For years, Instagram has allowed up to thirty hashtags to be added to a post, but it’s testing a new implementation that limits this number to three for some users. This restriction is considered the most significant change to the hashtag system, which has remained virtually unchanged since 2011.

Hashtag limit coming

Screenshots shared on Reddit reveal that Instagram is limiting hashtag usage to three hashtags for certain accounts. When users attempt to add a fourth hashtag to the post description, the app displays an error message, preventing them from doing so.

This new limit isn’t yet active on all accounts. For example, while some corporate Instagram accounts have this restriction in place, some individual users continue to post as per the old system.

This suggests that Meta is initially testing the implementation with a limited group of users. The platform is expected to gradually roll out this change to all users, as it has done with previous design updates.

Since its launch in 2011, the hashtag system has played a critical role in content discovery, and Instagram used to allow up to thirty hashtags per post. With this new test, this upper limit has been dramatically reduced to three hashtags.

Meta has not officially announced this change. Therefore, there is currently no clear information regarding how long the test will last, whether it will be expanded, or whether it will apply to all users.

However, this apparent limitation clearly demonstrates that Instagram is considering a radical overhaul of the platform’s interaction, discovery, and content distribution dynamics.