4 EASY Ways to Hide Who You Follow on Instagram

Sadly, Instagram doesn’t have a setting to hide who you follow from other users.

Although Instagram users have requested this since the early days, Instagram has yet to make this a feature.

Most people want to hide who they follow on Instagram, as it gives other people insight into what your interests may be, your personal or business relationships, and what type of content you like to view.

Other Instagram users could potentially use this information against you and your personal life.

So, it’s always best to protect your privacy as much as possible, and we’re going to discuss multiple ways on how you can do just that.

How to Hide Who You Follow on Instagram

Although Instagram doesn’t provide a setting within the app to hide who you’re following, there are multiple security measures you can take to increase the privacy of your account.

1. Block Specific Users on Instagram

In most cases, people usually want to hide who they follow from specific users.

Luckily an easy way to achieve this is by blocking them from your account. If activated, they won’t be able to view who you follow or any other part of your account. Follow the simple steps below to block another user from your account successfully.

1. Search up the Instagram user’s account name and tap on their profile
2. Tap the ‘…’ button in the top right of your screen
3. When prompted, proceed to tap the Block button.

2. Making Your Profile Private

Whether for personal use or business, most people prefer to keep their profile public, allowing potential new followers to view their content and be discoverable. In contrast, if you’re worried about your overall privacy on Instagram, there’s a simple fix for that.

Making your profile private will require viewers to follow you before they can view any information on your Instagram account. Although, this does not apply to anyone currently following you. Even if your account is private, your current followers can still view everything on your profile, along with who you follow.

Take a look at the following steps to make your account private quickly.

1. Open the app, and tap on your Instagram profile in the bottom right of your screen.
2. You’ll find three lines parallel to each other in the top right of your profile.
3. Once you tap on that, scroll to the privacy settings and turn on the Private Account button.

Once completed, your Instagram profile is entirely hidden from users who don’t follow you. Thus, successfully hiding who you follow from unwanted prying eyes.

3. Removing Followers From Your Private Account

As stated in the previous section, even if your Instagram account is set to private, anyone already following you can still view your profile and who you follow clear as day. So, what privacy options can be applied to the users who are already following you?

Thankfully, if there’s a will, there’s away. You can remove them from your profile in this situation, which will then hide your profile’s information entirely.

Follow the steps below to remove a follower from your profile.

1. Tap on your profile icon in the bottom right corner of the app.
2. From your profile, tap on your follower list at the top of your screen.
3. There, you can search the username you’re looking for and tap the Remove button that’s next to their name.

Sure, you may have lost a follower, but at the end of the day, your privacy and security are much more critical.

4. Instead of Following Accounts, Use an Instagram Monitoring Tool

Some of you are probably wondering what an Instagram monitoring tool is. Although not the most straightforward method, using a third-party monitoring tool for your Instagram account can provide some additional privacy the app itself doesn’t offer.

First and foremost, there are many Instagram monitoring tools out there. Still, it’s crucial to do your research and make sure they’re a reliable service as they’ll have access to your personal information.

These types of third-party Instagram account services tend to offer various options when monitoring your account.

Mainly, what these services can provide, is the ability to view content on Instagram from specific people without following their account. In turn, this gives you the option to “hide” who you follow on Instagram.

Since you’re technically monitoring content from a third-party service and not following accounts on the app, these accounts will not appear in your follow list.

Each of the privacy options we’ve spoken about provides different levels of privacy from different angles. Unfortunately, these are the options that are available until Instagram implements new security features.

Below, we’ll answer some common questions regarding privacy on Instagram.

FAQs

We’ve gone over multiple ways to hide who you follow from other Instagram users, but users have a few other privacy concerns regarding various features of the app.

If you have additional privacy concerns, the information below will help you secure your account even further.

1. What Does Restricting an Account Do?

This feature may not hide who you follow from the public eye, but it restricts other users’ access to your account.

To do this, go to the Instagram user’s account and tap the menu in the top right of your screen, and you’ll be prompted to either block or restrict their account.

Restricting another user means only you will be able to see their comments on your posts, their direct messages will be sent to your requests folder, they won’t be able to see if you’re online, or even notified if you’ve read their messages.

2. Can I Hide My Instagram from my Phone’s Contacts?

This setting is quite simple to activate, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the settings on Instagram. In your phone’s settings, scroll to applications and locate Instagram.

From there, turn off contact accessibility, and the permission will be removed from the application. Additionally, no one from your contacts list will be able to find you using your contact information.

3. Is it Possible to Hide My Instagram Stories from Certain People?

Luckily, this is an easy feature on Instagram, and there are two ways to achieve this outcome. Instagram lets you create a close friends list, which can be applied to your story posts, making them only viewable to that list of close friends and no one else. The other option allows you to hide your story from specific users entirely.

When getting ready to post a story, Instagram asks you who you want to send it to, and this is where you can easily create a close friends list and save it for future use.

To hide your stories from other Instagram accounts, open your story and tap on the three dots located at the bottom right corner. After that, choose story settings, tap on the “hide story from” button, and select the user you’d like to block from viewing your stories.

Conclusion

We learned from the beginning that Instagram doesn’t allow you to hide who you follow manually.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this will be a privacy feature implemented any time soon, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use any measure available to make our Instagram profile more secure.

Even if you aren’t the most concerned with your privacy on social media, it’s always best to make sure you, your personal information, and your interests stay protected from nosey users.