Threads redesigns website with DMs, navigation sidebar

At a glance:

• Threads unveils a cleaner single-feed web layout with a left-side navigation rail.
• Direct messages, launched on mobile in June 2025, arrive on desktop in coming weeks.
• The redesign brings feature parity with mobile and mirrors X’s desktop interface.

A cleaner web experience with DMs

Meta’s Threads is rolling out a major redesign of its desktop interface, bringing a streamlined single-feed layout anchored by a left-side navigation rail. The new sidebar offers one-click access to saved posts, performance insights, activity, notifications, and feed switching—features that previously required multiple taps or profile navigation on the web. Connor Hayes, who became head of Threads in September 2025, previewed the changes this week, noting that “web is an important part of how our most engaged users interact with Threads, and we’ll be investing more here going forward.”

The overhaul replaces the current multi-column design with a layout that closely resembles X’s desktop interface. While some may see this as Meta borrowing from its rival, the shift is pragmatic: Threads’ most engaged users—those on desktop—have long lacked core features like direct messaging. The new design aims to close that gap and make the platform more indispensable for power users who drive conversation and content creation.

DMs finally reach the desktop

Direct messages launched on the Threads mobile app in June 2025, nearly two years after the platform’s debut. Until now, desktop users have been unable to access one of Threads’ core communication tools. The web rollout will bring one-on-one chats, group conversations of up to 50 people, emoji reactions, and the ability to send photos, GIFs, and stickers.

Threads has been steadily building out its messaging infrastructure. In January, it introduced a basketball mini-game within DMs. In February, it began testing a shortcut that converts the phrase “DM me” in a post into a clickable link that opens a direct message. The messaging system is built on Instagram’s infrastructure, which ensures reliability but also ties it to a platform with different privacy expectations and content norms.

Competitive context and growth trajectory

Threads has grown faster than any social platform in history, now boasting more than 450 million monthly active users and an estimated 137 to 141 million daily active users. In January, Similarweb data showed Threads had surpassed X in daily mobile users, 141.5 million to 125 million—a milestone that would have seemed improbable when the app launched as a text-based companion to Instagram in July 2023.

The growth has come alongside a broader decline of X under Elon Musk’s ownership, which has pushed users, advertisers, and publishers toward alternatives. Bluesky, which raised $100 million in its Series B and has grown to 43 million users under new CEO Toni Schneider, has captured a vocal segment of the market. But Threads’ integration with Instagram’s 2 billion-plus user base gives it a distribution advantage that no standalone competitor can match.

Monetization and Meta’s broader bet

Meta began rolling out ads on Threads globally in late January 2026, after testing in the US and Japan throughout 2025. The rollout uses Meta’s existing Ads Manager and supports image, video, and carousel formats through both Advantage+ and manual campaigns. Early pricing has been lower than Facebook and Instagram, with CPMs estimated at $3 to $8 and cost per click at $0.30 to $1.50, reflecting the early stage of advertiser competition on the platform. Evercore ISI analysts have projected Threads advertising revenue of $8 billion by the end of 2025 and $11.3 billion by 2026.

The advertising rollout gives the web redesign commercial significance beyond user experience. Desktop users tend to have higher engagement times and are more valuable to advertisers. A web interface that keeps users on the platform longer and adds messaging, which increases session frequency, directly supports the revenue trajectory that analysts are projecting.

Leadership shift and future direction

Hayes was appointed to lead Threads in July 2025, taking over from Adam Mosseri, who had been running the platform directly alongside Instagram. Hayes previously served as Meta’s VP of product for generative AI and spent 14 years at the company in various product roles, including a stint growing Instagram Reels. Mosseri said at the time that “given Threads’ maturity, we think we need a dedicated app lead who can focus all of their time on helping Threads move forward.” The web redesign and DM rollout are the most visible results of that dedicated focus.

Threads is also the largest platform running on the ActivityPub protocol, allowing users to share posts to Mastodon, WordPress, and other fediverse-compatible services. Meta says it has interacted with over 75% of all fediverse servers, though full account portability is not yet available.

The redesign is incremental rather than transformative. It brings the web version closer to feature parity with the mobile app, which is itself still catching up to the feature set that X has built over 17 years. But for a platform that has Meta’s resources behind it, 450 million monthly users in front of it, and a growing creator economy to support, the gap between what Threads offers and what its most engaged users expect is closing faster than most new platforms manage. Hayes is signalling that the web is where the next phase of that closure will happen.