Instagram Live Video hours extended to 4 hours

Instagram has introduced three new features to encourage more users to live stream on its platform. Photo-sharing platform Instagram has extended the time limit for live streams from 60 minutes to four hours. The change is global and applies to all Instagram users. The reason behind the move, Instagram said, is helping creators — yoga instructors, musicians, artists, cooks, and the like — to do longer sessions with their audience without being interrupted every hour. However, this will only be available to accounts “in good standing,” with no history of IP or policy violations, Instagram said. There is also a new Live Archive option that has been enabled to keep all your live videos saved for up to 30 days. To find this new option, live video users should click on the hamburger menu from the top right corner of the profile screen. You will need to tap on the Archive option there and choose ‘Live Archive’. The videos found in the archive can be downloaded, and these can then be re-uploaded on IGTV as well. You can download your live videos to your device or upload them to IGTV from your archive. Instagram said this new feature will launch soon.

The company also said that it will be updating the ‘Live Now’ section on IGTV and at the end of a live stream, with the idea of providing people with more content that may interest them, both from the creators they follow, and those they do not.