
While owned by Meta, Instagram lacks a lot of customizability when it comes to privacy features. For example, you can’t maintain a custom list or include and exclude people per post as you please. Instead, you have to be a bit creative about the whole process. What you can do is maintain a close friends list, remove people as followers, make your account private, hide your stories from specific people, and a few more things.
So, if you’re trying to avoid a nosy acquaintance, there are a few things you can do, and we’ll go through each of those processes. And touch on a few extra privacy features that you may find useful.
How to Make Your Instagram Account Private?
If the person you are trying to hide your posts from is not already a follower, you can just make your account private. That will make all your posts available to your followers only. And all followers will have to send you a follow request that you approve. Making your account private is a great move if you don’t want just about anyone to see your posts. Here’s how you do it:
- Open the Instagram app on your phone
- Log in and tap your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.
- Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right.
- Scroll down to who can see your content and click on account privacy.
- Toggle the switch next to private account.
Once your account is private, new followers will need your approval, and only your followers will see your content. Note that your existing followers will still have access unless you remove them.
How to Remove Followers?
If someone is already following you and you’d rather they didn’t, you can quietly remove them. While blocking and unblocking can remove followers on most platforms, Instagram lets you do that manually, so you don’t have to block.
- Open the Instagram app.
- Tap your profile picture on the bottom right.
- Then tap Followers.
- Scroll to the person you want to remove.
- Tap the Remove (X) button next to their name and confirm.
After this, they won’t see your posts or stories unless your account is public or they follow you again and you accept their request.
How to Block Someone on Instagram?
Now, blocking someone on Instagram is always an option. It’s more of a permanent solution. But sometimes, it’s the only way to stay safe on a platform. Blocking will prevent a person from seeing your Instagram profile altogether. So, no posts, stories, or DMs.
- Open the Instagram app.
- Tap on the search button from the bottom bar.
- Look for the person you want to block and go to their profile.
- Click on the three dots on the top right.
- From the pull-up menu tap on Block and confirm.
- You can also choose to Block and report if that person has done anything that goes against Meta’s community standards.Â
How to Maintain Close Friends on Instagram?
Instagram’s Close Friends feature is like your personal VIP list. You can choose people from your followers and following list to be here. Then while posting or sharing a story, you can choose to only share with your close friends. This feature is very close to Facebook’s custom list. However, unlike custom lists, you can only have one close friends list. Here’s how to manage it:
- Open the Instagram App
- Tap your profile picture on the bottom-right corner.Â
- Scroll down to who can see your content and choose Close Friends.
- From there, you can scroll and select the people you want on your Close Friends list by tapping on the checkboxes.Â
- Once you’re done, tap on the Done button at the bottom.
How to Post Stories Only to Close Friends?
Once you’ve set up your Close Friends list, you can start posting stories to them. This will help you exclude the people you want to avoid.
- Open the Instagram app on your Phone.
- Swipe right on your home screen or tap the plus icon on the top right.
- After creating your story, tap Close Friends instead of your stories.
- And now, that specific story will only be visible to your close friends.
Your story will appear with a green ring around your profile picture, signalling it’s visible only to your Close Friends. However, if excluding one or two people is the only goal, close friends may not be the right feature for you. As you have to manually select everyone else to be on your close friends list.
How to Share Posts Only with Close Friends?
Previously the close friends list was only for sharing stories, but with a recent update Instagram added the ability to share posts from your feed with your close friends. Here’s how to do it.
- Make sure that your Instagram app is updated to the latest version.
- Open the Instagram app on your phone.
- Tap on the + icon at the bottom of your screen.
- Create a post and edit it as you would and proceed.
- On the last page, where you usually add captions and tag people, scroll down to find Audience.
- Click on Audience and choose Close Friends.
- Then go on and post.
It is a relatively new feature, so make sure your app is updated to the latest version.
How to Hide Your Stories from Specific People?
If you’d rather hide your story from certain followers without restricting or removing them, Instagram allows you to do just that. However, the same cannot be done with posts yet.
- Open the Instagram app.
- Tap on the search button from the bottom bar.
- Look for the person you want to block and go to their profile.
- Tap on the three dots on the top right.
- From the pull up menu tap on hide your story.
Alternatively,
- Open the Instagram app.
- Tap on your profile picture on the bottom right.
- Tap on the three lines (hamburger menu) on the top right.
- Scroll down to who can see your content and select hide story and live.
- Then tap on hide story and live from.Â
- Add people from the list of search for the people you want to exclude from your audience.Â
Other Privacy Features to Consider
Instagram has a few more privacy features that you may be interested in. You can restrict certain accounts, turn off your activity status, and control your tagged photos.
Restrict Accounts
If someone is bothering you but you don’t want to block them, you can restrict them. Restricted accounts can still see your posts, but their comments are only visible to them (and you can approve them manually). Here’s how to restrict someone:
- Open the Instagram app.
- Click on the search button from the bottom menu.
- Look for the person you want to restrict
- Open their profile and tap the three dots in the top-right.
- Select Restrict, and they’ll quietly move to a limited interaction zone.
Once restricted, you will stop receiving any and all notifications about their interactions. Moreover, their messages will move to your message requests. To unrestrict an account, you can follow the same process, and instead of Restrict, you’ll see the option to Unrestrict.
Turn Off Activity Status
Your activity status lets others see when you’re online. If you don’t want others to know when you’re online, you should turn off your activity status.
- Open the Instagram app on your phone.Â
- Tap on your profile picture on the bottom right corner.
- Scroll down to how others can interact with you and tap on messages and story replies.
- From who can see you’re online, tap on show activity status.
- On the next page, disable it.
Control Tagged Photos
Sometimes, others might tag you in photos you don’t want to appear on your profile. Luckily, you can manage tags:
- Launch the Instagram app on your Phone.
- Tap on the profile picture on the bottom right to go to your profile.
- Tap on the three lines on the top right to access the settings and activity page.
- Scroll down to see how others can interact with you, and tap on tags and mentions.
- From there, you can choose who to allow tags and mentions from.Â
- You can also choose to approve tags manually.
Wrapping Up
Now, the straight answer to can you hide posts from people on Instagram is no. You can’t. Instagram doesn’t have a specific feature to hide posts from people. But you can exclude people from your closed friends list and share that specific post with them only. You can also make your profile private and remove people as followers. And there’s always the good old handy way to get rid of people by blocking them.
While restricting people or controlling tagged photos doesn’t go much of hiding. They’re also good privacy features to have. A lot of the features we’ve walked you through in this article were not available before. Instagram keeps adding more and more privacy features. And we are expecting them to give users more control over privacy settings in the future.
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