Instagram is back up after global outage

Instagram has recovered from another major outage after users around the world lost access to Facebook's photo-sharing service through its app and website.

Some users reported no access at all, while others just couldn't do any searches or reach other parts of the service.

"We are now fully recovered and apologize for the disruption," Instagram posted on Twitter.

Downdetector.com, a site that monitors social media sites for user-reported outage claims, recorded the start of the outage around 2.30pm Pacific Time Thursday, or about 7.30am AEST Friday.

Major internet services like Instagram regularly face some outages for a wide variety of reasons, but Facebook's photo-sharing service seems to be on a bit of an unlucky streak lately.

The service reportedly has suffered at least two other major outages since the beginning of the month.