Meta has officially launched a new long-form text feature for its Threads app, just a week after it was first spotted in testing. The update allows users to attach text snippets of up to 10,000 characters to their posts, a move the company says is designed to better support journalists and creators on the platform.
The feature, called a text attachment, is accessed through the post composer. It opens a simple text editor with some basic formatting options. When published, the text appears in a full-screen view on mobile or in a dedicated window on the Threads website. A notable inclusion is that if the post contains a link, the text attachment will display a preview of that link at the end, aligning with Meta’s broader effort to make links more prominent on Threads.
This push for links has seen mixed results. While internal data indicates engagement with links is growing, overall traffic from Threads to external websites remains very low.
Meta stated that the inspiration for the text attachment came from observing user behavior. People frequently share screenshots of long-form content from sources like books, articles, newsletters, and podcast transcripts. The company suggests this tool offers a more native way for authors and journalists to share previews or excerpts of their published work directly within the app.
However, the feature is currently quite basic. It offers limited text formatting and does not support embedded media like images or videos, making it difficult to break up large blocks of text. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that additional formatting abilities, such as highlighting, are in development.
Another significant limitation is that text attachments are not compatible with the fediverse. Even for users who have opted into sharing their posts to other ActivityPub services like Mastodon, followers on those platforms will not be able to see the attached text.
Despite these early limitations, the feature is likely to be welcomed by many users as a cleaner alternative to posting long, multi-part Threads, which can be disjointed and difficult to follow as they do not always appear together in a user’s feed.
Meta has indicated that this is just the beginning for text attachments and that it plans to add more functionality over time, alongside other updates focused on empowering creators on the platform.
