Instagram update allegedly breaks carousel editing as delete photo option disappears

Instagram users are running into what looks like a frustrating new bug. The option to delete individual photos from carousel posts appears to have vanished for several people after a recent update.

Multiple Reddit threads popped up over the past day complaining about the missing delete button. When users tap Edit on their carousel posts, they’re now taken straight to an “Edit info” page where they can only adjust captions, tags, and location. The trash can icon that normally appears in the top left corner when you select a photo is gone.

One user on the Instagram subreddit explained that pressing and holding the images does nothing, and selecting individual photos doesn’t work either. You can swipe through the carousel, but there’s no way to actually interact with or remove specific pictures.

Another person mentioned they only discovered the feature existed recently, and right when they tried using it to reorganize photos by deleting and restoring them, the whole option disappeared.

The timing is terrible for at least one user who joked they “picked the WORST time to break up with my ex” since they can’t edit old posts anymore.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri first announced the carousel deletion feature back in November 2021, even calling it a “finally feature” in a video on X. The rollout came alongside another tool called Rage Shake, which lets you literally shake your phone to report app issues.

The carousel deletion feature lets you remove individual images from posts containing three or more items, and deleted photos would sit in the Recently Deleted folder for 30 days in case you changed your mind. People also figured out they could use this to rearrange carousel photos by deleting images and restoring them to the end of the post.

Apart from Reddit, some complaints are even surfacing on X. One person specifically noted that the edit screen layout seems to have changed, suggesting this might be tied to an interface redesign rather than an intentional removal of the feature.

This isn’t the only issue users have had with the app in recent days. Just yesterday, people reported issues with Stories showing zero views and missing story rings.

There’s been no official word from Instagram yet on whether this is a bug or some kind of A/B test. Users affected by the problem are stuck either leaving their carousels as-is or deleting entire posts and starting over.

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.