You Can Finally Change Your Default Feed on Threads

It finally happened: Threads officially allows you to choose a default feed to see when you open the app, whether that be "Following" or a custom feed you've created yourself. This means that when you open Threads, you'll be able to view posts from the accounts you chose to follow, instead of seeing what the algorithm wants you to. Meta has been testing this feature for a few months, and is now rolling it out to everyone—in addition to a few other new features. 

How to change Threads' default feed to Following

The process of changing your default feed is straightforward. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Threads app on your phone and go to the Home tab. 

2. You'll see all your feeds in different tabs at the top of the screen, just below the Threads logo. Tap and hold any of these feeds and select Edit Feeds. 

3. This will reveal all your feeds in a list. Hold any feed here and drag it up or down to reorder the list. The first one in the list will automatically become your new default feed. 

Feel free to set it to Following or any custom feed you've created. Note that this feature is being rolled out slowly, so it may take a while before you see it on your phone.

Other updates to Threads

With the same update, Threads has added a few more useful features to the app. My personal favorite is the new video player, which finally has basic playback controls and a progress bar that you can easily access. There's a new play/pause button in between the rewind and forward buttons. You can use those buttons to skip back or forward by 10 seconds at a time. The progress bar appears below each video and it's big enough to scrub through videos. It's a great change: Without these features, watching videos on Threads often felt like watching looping gifs.

You can also limit replies and quotes of your posts. When you compose a new post in Threads, tap the Anyone can reply & quote button, located to the left of the Post button. This lets you limit replies and quoting to your followers, mentioned accounts, or accounts you follow. 

Separately, Meta is testing the ability to add up to 10 topics to your Threads profile. Tapping these topics leads you to conversations around those subjects, similar to how hashtags work on other social media platforms. When you compose a new post in Threads, you may see a button that lets you add a trending topic to the post. If you use it, your post could reach a larger audience than usual.