Meta has officially discontinued end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for direct messages on Instagram, disabling the privacy-focused feature globally from Friday, May 8.

Users who had enabled encrypted chats are now receiving in-app notifications urging them to download important media, photos, videos, voice notes, or messages before the data becomes inaccessible in its encrypted form. The company has provided clear instructions inside the app and on its help centre for downloading this data, which is currently available only via a computer through the “Your Activity” section under secure storage.