Reference

Every feed surface in six apps, named and mapped

By Juhyun NamPublished 14 September 2026Updated 14 September 2026

Eighteen surfaces across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, TikTok and LinkedIn, each filed under the name its own platform prints, with a line on what it is, a verdict on whether snowscroll draws it, and what you are left holding once it goes. This is a specification rather than an essay. We went looking for this list before writing it, and nobody had made one.

Checked September 2026. The Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn rows were re-read this month against each publisher's live help documentation. The five X and TikTok rows could not be: X returns 403 to an automated reader and TikTok serves an empty shell, so those rows carry our own August 2026 reading and are marked in the first column.

Two words carry this page. A surface is a named region of an app, the thing a platform ships, renames and relocates between releases. A feed surface is one that refills by itself and never runs out. Most arguments about phone habits get muddled because people say the app when they mean one region inside it.

What the verdict column means. Off is a control snowscroll ships: with it on, that surface is not drawn inside our browser. Off, own switch says the same of the ranked home screen, always separate from the short-video surfaces so you can lose one and keep the other. Kept is a surface we leave standing on purpose. No switch means we ship no control for it. The whole switch list runs to five items, printed on the switch list printed beside the two prices: Reels, Shorts, Explore, the For You page, the ranked home feed.

The lines the names came from. Four publishers still showed us their documentation in September 2026. These are the sentences the spelling above rests on.

• You may see suggested posts in places such as your Instagram feed, Reels tab and Explore.Instagram Help Centre, on how suggested posts are chosen
• Shorts appear on a Shorts shelf on your YouTube homepage, in search results, and on channel pages across YouTube.YouTube Help, on watching Shorts
• Feed is the constantly updating list of stories in the middle of your home page.Facebook Help Centre, on how Feed works
• we're also renaming the Video tab to Reels tabMeta newsroom, 17 June 2025, which is why Watch no longer appears anywhere in this table
• You'll see the latest posts first, only from people whom you follow.LinkedIn Help, describing Most recent posts under Preferred Feed View

That fourth line deserves a pause. Facebook Watch was a real surface with a real name for years, and it has left Meta's own vocabulary. Any guide still using it describes a version of the app nobody has. Names age, which is why this page carries a date.

What we left out, and why. Four candidates did not make it, each for the same reason: we could not name them with confidence.

• TikTok's third tab, which some accounts show as Discover and others as Friends. It would need a name we cannot currently source.
• The discovery tab on X, and trends. No readable documentation, no control of ours.
• Anything sponsored. Taking advertising out of a page is not a job snowscroll does.
• Direct messages. Not a feed, and we will not hide them, which is closer to a principle than a feature.

The pattern under all eighteen rows. Read the last column downward and one shape repeats. What goes is whatever refills on its own. What stays is whatever ends: a thread, a search, a group, a job, a profile, a video you chose. That is the entire design, and why a long table stays simple.

One footnote on how any of this reaches you. snowscroll asks for Screen Time permission during setup and ships Family Controls extensions, so its shield can catch a habitual tap on one of these six and land you in snowscroll with the surfaces above already absent. It reroutes, it does not refuse. Native apps stay on your phone, every switch flips back in a tap, and the parts a browser still gets wrong are written down by us.

Keep the connection. Lose the scroll.

snowscroll takes the feed out of the apps you still want to use, and leaves the people in. $49.99 a year or $9.99 a month on the App Store, with every feature included.

Common questions

What counts as a feed surface?

A region of an app that refills on its own and has no end. Reels, Shorts, Explore, For You and the ranked home screen all qualify, because each one keeps producing until you stop. A message thread, a job search, a group, a profile and Marketplace do not, because each of them runs out when you have done the thing you came to do. The whole table is built on that split.

Which of these does snowscroll actually take off the screen?

Five kinds of surface, each on its own switch: Reels, Shorts, Explore, the For You page, and the ranked home screen on every one of the six apps. Everything else in the table is either kept on purpose, such as a chronological timeline, or marked no switch, which means we ship no control for it. The verdict column says which, row by row, and we would rather leave a row blank than claim one we cannot back.

Why are the X and TikTok rows marked as unverified?

Because neither publisher would serve us its help pages this month. X answers an automated reader with a 403, and TikTok redirects its support articles to a page that arrives with no article body at all. Those five rows therefore rest on our own reading of both apps in August 2026 rather than on anything we could open in September. We flagged them instead of quietly presenting a year-old check as a fresh one.

Does taking a surface off the screen change my account?

No. Nothing is installed into the platform, no preference on your account is flipped, and no signal is sent on your behalf. You sign in to each platform's own mobile site inside snowscroll and it declines to draw part of the page in front of you. Turn a switch back and the surface returns exactly as it was, because nothing about it was ever altered at the other end.

Can I still reach a feed if I decide I want it?

Yes, and we will not pretend otherwise. Every switch flips back in a tap, and the native apps stay on your phone. snowscroll does ask for Screen Time permission during setup so its shield can catch a habitual tap on one of the six and land you in snowscroll with the surfaces already gone, but that is a redirect rather than a refusal. It moves the easy path, it does not seal the other one.