Managing Your Followers
If your account is set to private, anyone who wants to see your photos or videos will have to send you a follower request.
To approve or deny a follower request on Instagram:
- Tap
at the top to see Follow Requests.
- Tap Confirm to approve a request. Tap Delete to deny a request.
If you accidentally deny a follow request, you can ask the person to request to follow you again.
To unfollow someone:
- Go to the profile of the person you'd like to unfollow.
- Tap Following, then tap Unfollow to confirm.
Once you've unfollowed someone, their profile will say Follow instead of Following. People won't be notified when you unfollow them.
Note: If your account is set to private, you can remove people from your followers list. You can also block them. When you block someone, the blocked person can't see your photos or videos or search for your Instagram account. The blocked person isn't notified when they're blocked.
By default, anyone can see your profile and posts on Instagram. You can make your account private so that only followers you approve can see what you share. If your account is set to private, only your approved followers will see your photos or videos on hashtag or location pages.
Tap
or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
Tap
in the top right, then tap
Settings.
- Tap Privacy.
- Tap next to Private Account to make your account private.
- Click your profile picture in the top right corner, then click
- Click Privacy and Security.
- Below Account Privacy, click to check the box next to Private Account.
- Tap your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
- Tap
- Tap Privacy and Security.
- Below Account Privacy, tap to check the box next to Private Account.
Things to keep in mind about private accounts
- Private posts you share to social networks may be visible to the public depending on your privacy settings for those networks. For example, a post you share to Twitter that was set to private on Instagram may be visible to the people who can see your Twitter posts.
- Once you make your account private, people will have to send you a follow request to see your posts, your followers list or your following list.
- Follow requests appear in
- If someone was already following you before you set your posts to private and you don't want them to see your posts, you can block them.
- People can send a photo or video directly to you even if they’re not following you.
There are two ways to block or unblock someone on Instagram. You can block or unblock someone on Instagram quickly by going directly to their profile. From your privacy settings, you can also view your blocked accounts list, where you can choose to block other people or unblock someone on the list.
To block or unblock someone from their profile:
- Tap their username from their Feed or story post, or tap
and search their username to go to their profile.
- Tap
(iPhone/computer) or
(Android) in the top right.
- Tap Block/Unblock (iPhone/Android) or Block/Unblock (computer).
- Tap Block/Unblock again to confirm.
To block or unblock someone from your privacy settings:
Tap
Tap
- Tap Privacy, then tap Blocked Accounts.
- To unblock someone on your blocked accounts list, tap Unblock to the right of their name. Tap Unblock again to confirm.
- To add someone to your blocked accounts list, tap
in the top right and search for the person you’d like to block. Tap Block to the right of their name, then tap Block again to confirm.
Keep in mind:
- People aren't notified when you block them. Learn more about blocking people.
- After you block someone, their likes and comments will be removed from your photos and videos.
- Unblocking someone won't restore their previous likes and comments.
- You can delete their comments from your posts. You can also block multiple people from your comments.