Instagram Threads, Meta’s newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website Threads.net to Threads.com. The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, saved posts, and likes, as well as other tools for creating new columns, copying posts for resharing, finding your favorite creators from X on Threads, and more.
Meta had initially launched its new social app in July 2023 on the URL Threads.net, as a Sequoia-backed Slack alternative startup had owned the Threads.com domain at the time. (That startup sold to Shopify last year.)
In September 2024, Meta acquired the Threads.com domain name and later began redirecting the URL Threads.com to Threads.net.
Starting today, Meta explains that users will no longer be redirected from the .com to the .net; it will be the other way around.
Going forward, if you type in Threads.com in your browser, you’ll go directly to your Threads home screen without being redirected. Meanwhile, those who type in Threads.net will be redirected to the URL Threads.com.
The change gives Meta a more prominent and better-remembered URL for its social app that now reaches over 320 million monthly active users, as of Meta’s last public earnings announcement in January. The rebrand of sorts may allow the app to better compete with its rival X, which also has a memorable (and simple!) domain name.
In addition to this change, Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Thursday announced a few other minor updates coming to the Threads web app, which is often used by creators.
He said users will now see their custom feeds appear in the web app in the same order as they appear on the mobile app. Plus, users will now be able to access their liked and saved posts via the main menu instead of having to create a pinned column to see them.
Another new addition allows users to copy a Threads post as an image instead of having to screenshot it. This will make it easier to share Threads posts in other apps, like Instagram, Meta thinks.
Threads users will also now be able to add a column by clicking a new column icon on the right side of the screen.
And they’ll be able to click a plus “+” button in the bottom-right to open a new window and compose a post.
There’s also a new feature that allows people to find and follow the same creators they previously followed on X. This feature was introduced earlier this month and works by having users download an archive of their X data, which is uploaded to Threads.
Those who previously had access to the feature were shown a pop-up saying they could now “Find popular creators from X.” The feature remains in testing, Meta says.
