Threads Now Features Self-Destructing “ghost Posts.”
If you’ve watched enough Mission: Impossible (or Inspector Gadget , if your parents didn’t let you watch Mission: Impossible ), you’re familiar with the self-destructing message. Now, Meta X’s competitor, Threads, is making it its primary function.
A new post type called ” Ghost Posts ” launches today and allows you to publish posts to your feed without worrying about leaving a lasting mark. Ghost posts will appear in your feed while they’re active, but will be automatically archived after 24 hours.
“Here today, there tomorrow,” as Threads puts it, the idea being to encourage users to share “spontaneous thoughts” and “fresh perspectives.” It’s not the first time a social network has experimented with ephemeral content—Snapchat is perhaps the most famous example—but it makes sense. People change, and who I was 10 years ago may look completely different from who I am now. Even if your feed has nothing to delete, it can be awkward to see old posts. And if you’re still holding onto everything you’ve ever posted, it’s still worth clearing out your feed before leaving the platform .
That’s why sites like X already have a number of third-party programs that can delete your old messages , but Threads is the first platform of its kind to officially offer this feature. Here’s how it works:
How to use ghost posts in topics
Threads Ghost posts are already live, so you can try them out right now. The only catch is that they’re not yet available for desktop computers (at least based on my testing), so you’ll have to use the Threads app to get started, at least for now.
To write a ghost post, open the Threads app and find the “What’s New?” box under your username (usually at the very top of the page). Tap the smiley face icon in the dotted chat bubble to the right of it.
Next, write your post as usual. Once submitted, it will appear in your followers’ feeds in the chat bubble outlined by the dotted line, as well as in your profile in a special subsection called “Ghost Posts.”
Besides being temporary, ghost posts also hide their metrics and replies. Only you will be able to see who interacted with your post, and all replies will be sent to you via private messages, not directly below the post. Everyone else will only see emojis next to the post’s metrics, indicating that at least one person has interacted with it.
That’s it. You’ve successfully flooded your friends’ feeds.
What happens to a ghost post after 24 hours?
Although ghost posts are generally set-it-and-forget-it, you can technically still interact with them after 24 hours. They’ll be archived, meaning other users won’t see them. However, if you want to scroll through your old thoughts, you can easily view archived posts. Simply go to your profile page, click the button with two lines in the upper right corner, and select “Archive.”
Also note that while archived posts no longer appear in threads, they may continue to be published on other servers if you’ve enabled Fediverse publishing in your profile. I’ve contacted Meta to find out how this will affect Ghost posts and will update this post as soon as I hear back (I’m assuming Ghost posts simply won’t be published on other servers, but I’ll let you know if that’s not the case).