Threads has reached 500 million monthly active users, nearly three years after its launch as Meta’s competitor to Twitter, now known as X.
The company announced the milestone on Tuesday, along with the rollout of new features designed to give users more control over their feed and improve community engagement.
Among the key updates is a new feature called “Your Algo,” which builds on the earlier “Dear Algo” tool introduced in February. While Dear Algo allowed users to publicly post preferences about the type of content they wanted to see, Your Algo takes a more private approach.
With Your Algo, users can adjust their feed by indicating topics they want to see more or less of, without making public posts. These preferences can be set for a limited duration of one, three, or seven days and remain visible only to the user. The feature is currently rolling out in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
The update gives Threads an edge over competitors like X by offering temporary, user-controlled algorithm adjustments, allowing people to fine-tune their experience without permanently changing interests or publicly interacting with the algorithm.
Threads is also expanding its Communities feature, which was previously in beta testing. Communities allow users to join dedicated spaces focused on specific interests such as sports, entertainment, music, and books. A new Communities Hub is being introduced to make these spaces easier to discover, complete with distinct icons for better visibility within the app.
Instagram head Connor Hayes told TechCrunch that the updated discovery system is designed to help users quickly find relevant communities and improve engagement by connecting them with like-minded audiences.
In addition, Threads is expanding Live Chats to more communities. The feature enables real-time discussions during major cultural and sporting events, with new options for co-hosting chats and quoting highlights directly into the feed. By July, all communities are expected to have access to Live Chats.
Meta says users are responding positively to Threads as a less chaotic, more conversation-focused social platform compared to video-heavy competitors. The expansion of Live Chats is also seen as a step toward strengthening its position in real-time discussions, an area long dominated by X.
Since its launch, Threads has added around 100 million users in the past 10 months. Meta reported 400 million monthly active users in August 2025, meaning the platform has now grown to 500 million users globally.
Recent growth has been supported by several new features, including direct messaging, ghost posts, desktop messaging, and improved discovery tools.
