Instagram Reels sorting by most viewed instead of chronological order? Here's what you need to know

Instagram users started noticing something weird over the past few days. When they go to check out someone’s Reels tab, the videos aren’t showing up in order anymore. Instead of the usual newest-to-oldest arrangement, everything’s jumbled up by how many views each video got.

A Reddit thread kicked off discussions about the change, with user katyerre explaining they were trying to find a three-month-old Reel when they realized the entire layout had switched from chronological to popularity-based. “Yesterday it was ‘normal’ so I think it was updated today,” they wrote. Multiple users in the comments confirmed they’re seeing the same thing, and honestly, it’s pretty frustrating.

The change seems particularly annoying for people who follow accounts with tons of Reels. Scrolling through thousands of videos when you’re looking for something specific becomes a nightmare without chronological order. One user mentioned they manage someone’s account and usually check recent posts to see how they’re doing, but now they can’t even find the newest uploads.

Turns out this is actually a new feature that Instagram is rolling out gradually, giving users the option to sort Reels by “Most viewed” or keep them in “Latest” order. According to comments in thread, you can touch and hold the Reels icon at the top of a profile (where you switch between posts, Reels, and tagged content), and a dropdown menu should appear letting you toggle between the two sorting options.

The problem? Not everyone has access to this toggle yet, which is why some users are stuck with the view-count sorting and can’t figure out how to switch it back to chronological.

Some people tried figuring out patterns for when the sorting changes. One Reddit user suggested it might depend on how you navigate to someone’s profile — scrolling through videos and then tapping into their Reels page supposedly shows them by popularity, while searching for an account directly keeps things chronological.

The worst part? Even when the dropdown option to switch sorting exists, some users report it doesn’t always work properly. The Reels stay out of order no matter which option you pick. One user on X even shared a screenshot as proof:

It’s worth pointing out that the option to sort by ‘Latest’ and ‘Most viewed’ was recently added. But in this case, it seems like a bug is causing the sorting filter to get stuck as ‘Most viewed’ by default, and not letting people switch to ‘Latest.’

For now, anyone dealing with this issue might just have to toggle between sorting options repeatedly and hope it sticks, or wait for Instagram to fix the glitch.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets—more info is available here.