New on Instagram: Testing vertical profile grids

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said they are testing a major change to their profile pages because the vast majority of Instagram uploads contain vertical content.

Instagram is testing a major change to their profile pages. With the new change, the squares on the profile grid are being turned into vertical rectangles. Some users have started reporting that their content is no longer squares but rather rectangles that grow vertically.

The vast majority of Instagram uploads contain vertical content

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said about the new test that the vast majority of content uploaded to Instagram is vertical, and that cropping a photo to 4x3 or a video to 9x16 is cruel.
Mosseri noted that squares are a remnant of the old days when you could only upload square photos to Instagram, a limitation that Instagram removed in 2015. Mosseri also said that this profile change can be frustrating for people who spend a lot of time editing and making sure everything is compatible.

"We're testing a vertical profile grid with a small number of people. This is a limited test and we'll listen to feedback from the community before we release anything more," Instagram spokesperson Christine Pai said in a statement. Still, if you've carefully planned your profile grid around squares, you might want to be prepared for the fact that one day those squares might turn into rectangles.