Threads has been steadily adding features since it launched, and the latest one is designed to give users a more private way to share content with people they actually know.

The company has started testing a smaller-circle sharing tool, and it comes with a playful nickname already attached.

Meta Threads Friends: New Feature to Privately Share Posts

Meta announced earlier today that it is testing a new Threads feature called Threads Friends, which allows users to share posts exclusively with a smaller, curated list of up to 50 followers rather than broadcasting to their entire audience on the platform. The test was announced through the official Threads account and confirmed by Meta’s spokesperson in comments to Engadget.

When a user sets up their Friends list and creates a post for that group, the content is only visible to the people on the list and does not appear publicly on the platform. A green bubble at the top of a user’s feed lets them access posts shared exclusively by the people in their Friends list, with those posts surfacing content from the past 24 hours.

Meta appears to be making the initial setup as frictionless as possible. The app will automatically suggest followers that the user engages with most frequently as starting candidates for the Friends list, though the final composition of the list is fully customizable by the user.

Laura Javier, product design director for Threads, shared a preview on her own Threads account showing what a friends-only post looks like and also revealed an Easter egg built into the feature: the label “Threads Friends” can also display as “Thriends,” a portmanteau that the team appears to have built in deliberately.

Threads Friends Is Similar to Instagram’s Close Friends

Meta has described Threads Friends as functioning similarly to Instagram’s Close Friends feature, which has been part of Instagram since 2018. On Instagram, Close Friends allows users to share Stories with a private list of selected followers, keeping that content out of their public Story.

The Threads version applies the same principle to posts rather than Stories, creating a private-sharing layer for the text-based platform.

Both features serve the same core purpose: giving users a way to post more candidly with a smaller audience without having to manage a separate private account or lock down their entire profile. The distinction between what someone is comfortable sharing with 50 close contacts versus what they would broadcast to thousands of followers is a genuine consideration for many social media users, and both Meta products address that gap in their respective platforms.

The feature also draws comparisons to Twitter’s Circles, which launched in 2022 and allowed users to limit posts to a group of up to 150 people. That feature was discontinued in October 2023, roughly a year after it launched.

Threads Friends is similar in concept, with a smaller cap of 50 and a 24-hour post visibility window for the Friends feed, rather than allowing friends-only posts to persist indefinitely in the same way a standard post would.

Meta’s Threads Friends Now Testing Outside US

The initial rollout of Threads Friends is limited to three markets outside the United States: Ireland, Italy, and Japan. Meta has not shared a specific timeline for expanding the test to additional countries or confirmed whether the feature will roll out broadly based on the results from these markets.

Users in the United States do not currently have access to the feature and cannot create their own Friends list or see the Threads Friends feed. However, Meta has confirmed that US users can still be added to another person’s Friends list if someone in one of the three test markets includes them.

In that scenario, a US user who is on someone’s list will be able to see the friends-only posts that person shares, even though they cannot create their own.

The test markets suggest Meta may be using these three countries to evaluate how users in different cultural and language contexts adopt a more intimate sharing format before making a call on a wider release. Meta has used limited market tests for features on both Facebook and Instagram before expanding them globally, a pattern that indicates Threads Friends may not arrive for most users for some time yet.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Threads?

Threads is a social media platform developed and operated by Meta, launched in July 2023. It is built on top of Instagram’s infrastructure and requires an Instagram account to sign up, though users can operate their Threads profile independently once they have joined. The platform is text-focused, similar in basic format to X, formerly known as Twitter, and allows users to post text updates, images, and videos, reply to others, repost content, and build a following.

Threads grew extremely quickly after launch, reaching 100 million sign-ups within its first few days, making it one of the fastest-adopted platforms in social media history. The app is connected to the ActivityPub protocol, which means it is designed to eventually interoperate with other decentralized social platforms on the Fediverse. Threads is available on iOS and Android and through a web browser.

What Is Threads Friends?

Threads Friends is a new private-sharing feature currently in limited testing on Threads. It allows a user to build a curated list of up to 50 followers and designate posts specifically for that list, making those posts invisible to the rest of their audience and to anyone not on the list. When someone shares a post with their Friends list, it appears in a dedicated section of the app marked with a green bubble, showing friends-only content from the past 24 hours.

The list is customizable and is initially populated with suggestions based on which followers the user engages with most on the platform. The feature is intended to create a lower-stakes, more intimate sharing experience within the same Threads account, without requiring a user to maintain a separate private profile or restrict their account entirely. The feature is currently being tested in Ireland, Italy, and Japan, with no confirmed date for a broader rollout.

What Is Instagram’s Close Friends?

Instagram’s Close Friends is a feature that allows users to share Stories exclusively with a hand-selected list of followers rather than with their full audience. It was introduced in November 2018 and has since become one of Instagram’s most widely used privacy tools. When a user adds someone to their Close Friends list, that person sees a green circle around the Story indicator rather than the standard white ring, signaling that the content is from the Close Friends list.

Only people on the list can view those Stories, and the list is private: other users cannot see who is on it or whether they are included. The size of a Close Friends list is not capped at a specific number, unlike Threads Friends, which is limited to 50 people. Close Friends is available to all Instagram users globally and applies specifically to Stories, not to permanent posts or Reels. The feature remains active and has not been significantly changed since its initial introduction.