Tapping on the shortcut will take you to a one-on-one direct messaging chat with the person. If you both follow each other, the message will go directly to their primary inbox. If you don’t follow each other, the message is filtered through the “Message Requests” folder to prevent spam.

The company says the new shortcut removes the need to navigate to a person’s profile to start a DM conversation with them.

While Threads was late to introduce a native DM feature, this latest move indicates that the social network is looking to make messaging a more central part of its platform, as it’s working to reduce the number of steps it takes to start a conversation.

Image Credits:Threads

The new feature is rolling out to select users in the U.S. and Canada. As with any other test feature, it’s unknown when or if Threads plans to roll out the feature more widely.

The DM shortcut is just one of several new features that have rolled out on Threads in recent months. The social network recently introduced an AI-powered feature that lets users personalize their feed, and the ability to share posts directly to an Instagram Story without leaving the app. Plus, Threads was spotted exploring in-message games last month.

The additions come as a recent report from market intelligence firm Similarweb suggested that Threads now surpasses X in daily mobile usage. Although X still dominates Threads on the web, the Threads mobile app for iOS and Android has continued to see an increase in daily active users over the past several months.

The report revealed that Threads had 141.5 million daily active users on mobile as of January 7, 2026, while X had 125 million daily active users.