Instagram now lets users soundtrack stories with thousands of licensed tracks

Instagram has officially announced a new feature that allows users to add music to their stories from a database of thousands of tracks.

This is the product of a major licensing deal between Instagram and the three major labels Sony, Warner and Universal. After teasing the new function last month via a small selection of Instagram users, the new announcement today makes the feature available to all iOS users, with Android functionality ‘coming soon’.

The company explained the new feature in a press release: “When you tap to add a sticker to a photo or video in Stories, you’ll now see a music icon. Tap on it to open a library of thousands of songs — you can search for a specific song, browse by mood, genre or what’s popular and tap the play button to hear a preview. When you’ve selected your song, you can fast-forward and rewind through the track to choose the exact part that fits your story.”

Instagram went on to explain what users will see when viewing stories: “When your friends are watching your story, they’ll hear the song playing as they’re viewing your photo or video. They’ll also see a sticker showing the song title and artist name.”

In other Instagram related news, the popular app has confirmed that Instagram Stories now has 400 million daily users, as well as 1 billion monthly users on the app overall.