How to Hide My Followers on Instagram: Quick Steps

Ever wondered, “How to Hide Followers on Instagram?” If yes, you’re not alone. Explore the settings on Instagram for hiding followers and protect your privacy without quitting social media:

The Statista report shows that there were around 62.6% (5.07 billion) of social media users worldwide as of April 2024, and this number is expected to rise to over 6 billion by 2028. Instagram is ranked as the fourth most popular social media platform globally, with more than 2 billion monthly active users.

Starting with 110 million active users in 2013, Instagram now has become one of the most favorite social apps among people. This platform enables us to showcase everything from the most cherished moments of our daily lives to long or short tutorial videos or even short video stories (reels) for our loved ones, or, rather, it would be better to say audience.

Can You Hide Your Followers on Instagram: Explore Top Methods

However, oversharing on social media also raises privacy concerns, such as tracking, identity theft, and other cyber threats. Anyone, either a stranger or a friend, can access any information shared on social platforms. Besides, we will never know their intent. Therefore, it’s become crucial to know what we should post on social media and whom we want to see it.

Once we share personal information online, it could become challenging to erase, and if it gets into the wrong hands, it may affect things that we never thought of before. Some users may take these concerns so seriously that they have stopped using their social accounts to maintain their privacy.

However, some people may consider privacy measures a hindrance to their relationships and prioritize social connections over privacy.

Whatever your view, none of us can deny that privacy has become a significant point of concern for most of us while living in this digital world. We need to take some small steps towards privacy protection.

One of these steps can hide Instagram followers, which enables us to share anything without being tracked. To address this concern, in this blog, I will share my experience with you, “How to hide my followers on Instagram?” rather than quitting it. Let’s kick off!

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How to Manage Privacy on Instagram

Being an Instagram user, everyone should know about its privacy settings, empowering the users to control their data as per their wishes. When you know the privacy settings, then you can make your data more secure and control who can access your profile content.

For this, let’s understand the elements or features that can reveal private or personal details about you.

#1) Activity Status: The first one is the activity status. Instagram offers activity status features that are only visible to people we follow. When your activity status is on, your followers can see your last active status. You can turn off or on this status at any time.

However, there is one downfall to this. If you turn off your activity status, you also cannot see others’ active status.

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#2) Account Visibility: Instagram also offers an option to make your account private or public. In a public account, anyone can access your profile, even a person who doesn’t have an Instagram account. Instagram users can follow and check activity status or other profile information when it’s public.

They can also like, share, and comment on your posts and connect with other followers and users on their timelines. Like the Instagram influencer’s account, even though you do not follow their account, you can still check their entire profile. The public accounts are also business accounts on Instagram.

However, when an account is private, only followers can check the activities, including posts, reels, videos, etc., and like, comment on, and share them. Anyone who wants to check the activities, following, or follower list of a private account needs to send a follow-up request first.

If you want to hide your identity from the rest of the world, it is best to make your account private.

#3) Restrict Account: Restricting accounts is another option to manage Instagram privacy. It enables you to restrict interaction with particular followers without blocking or removing them.

Leveraging this option automatically hides our online status from them, and their messages directly move to the “Message Requests Inbox” instead of the “Direct Messages Inbox.” In this way, they will never know whether or not we open their messages.

Even if they make any comments, likes, or other activity on our content, it will be hidden automatically, and they will never receive any notifications about those accounts.

#4) Unfollow or Blocking: Instagram works hard to keep its platform a safe and trusted place for its users. That’s why it offers unfollowing or blocking options for those who have been facing inappropriate activities by other users.

For instance, if someone is sharing offensive content, you can immediately unfollow and block them. In addition, you can also report them if you think they are violating Instagram Community Guidelines.

If you are experiencing some kind of bullying or harassment, then you should report the incident to Instagram’s Help Center. The team can also help you remove distressing comments from the posts you’ve shared.

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How to Hide Followers on Instagram: 4 Easy Ways

Hiding Instagram followers can be tricky, as there’s no direct option to do this. However, 4 ways help to hide them to some extent. Let’s discuss them one by one:

Option #1: Making My Instagram Account Private

One of the easiest and instant ways that I found to hide my followers on Instagram is to make my account private. To enable this, I only needed to follow a few simple steps, and here are the steps:

Step #1: Open the Instagram app and click on your profile in the lower-right corner.

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Step #2: Tap on the three horizontal lines (Setting and Activity) in the top-right corner.

Step #3: Hit the “Account Privacy” tap.

Step #4: Now, you will see a toggle option. Toggle it on to turn your Instagram account private.

Now, only the approved followers can see my posts, stories, followers, and following lists. No random account has access to my content. If they want to, they must send a follow-up request. Once I accept this request, they will see my content.

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Limitations:

While making my Instagram account private offers several benefits, it also has some limitations. One of the most exhausting downsides of this method is that I must manually accept each new follower’s request. It requires lots of time and effort if a user has a significant number of requests.

Next, a private account has limited reach and engagement with the public. For instance, if a content creator wants to share their content on Instagram, they have limited access to the audience, or people who like their content may find it troubling. This leads to them not receiving more likes, comments, views, shares, and followers.

Your profile’s visibility might be lower if it’s a private account. It can’t be discoverable through Instagram’s Explore page or hashtags, making it harder for new users to find and connect to your account.

Note: The above option is quite effective for hiding followers from those who aren’t following us, but existing followers can still see our followers and the following list. In that case, we can say this method does not assure us of complete privacy.

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Option #2: Remove Followers Manually

The previous method works only on the people who don’t follow us. However, what if you want to hide some specific followers, or specifically to put “remove some followers”? Well, in this case, I tried another way to do this: remove followers manually.

Here are the steps to remove the followers manually:

Step #1: Open the Instagram app

[image source]

Step #2: Go to the Instagram profile in the lower-right corner

Step #3: Tap on the “Followers”

Step #4: Scroll down the followers’ list to find the accounts that you want to remove from your list.

Step #5: Now, once you have found that particular account, in front of their account, you will see a Message option and three dots in a straight line button.

Step #6: Tap on the three dots button, and a pop window will come up displaying, “Remove Follower?” and click on the Remove button in the red color.

Although this method is time-consuming and requires some effort, however, it selectively removes the Instagram followers without affecting the entire account’s privacy settings.

Limitations:

If you desire to increase your Instagram followers, this trick isn’t ideal. Removing followers manually will automatically decrease your overall follower number.

Next, removing followers may also affect your post engagement. It breaks your followers’ interactions with your posts through likes, shares, and comments, which results in limited online visibility of your post.

Option #3: Block Users

The next method to hide Instagram followers from specific users is the best way: blocking them. With this blocking trick, you can easily hide your profile details from them. They will not find your account, posts, or stories.

Besides, the blocked accounts will not be able to send a follow request, even from the new account if it’s connected to the previously blocked account.

Here are the steps that you can follow to block a user on Instagram:

Method #1

Step #4: Select the “Block” button.

Step #5: Confirm by tapping the “Block” button again

Plus, there’s another way to block an account. Here are steps:

Method #2

Step #3: Click on the Blocked option and then click on the Plus option in the upper right corner.

Step #4: Now, search the account you want to block and tap the block button. The pop-up window will show up, displaying the account’s user profile, and click on the Block button again.

Note: Blocking someone is a very extreme step, so you should remember some specific conditions while doing it. If a user harasses you or makes you feel uncomfortable by sharing some offensive visuals, then instantly block them, or you can even report them.

Limitations:

While blocking is an effective method, it can guarantee the complete invisibility of your account. This implies that if your account is public, then the user can see your post or other profile details by logging out with other accounts. However, it’s only possible if their account isn’t linked with the previous account that you’ve blocked.

Next, blocking someone can also remove the comments or likes that they made on your posts. It may affect the overall engagement and visibility of your profile. Therefore, be cautious and think twice before blocking someone on your Instagram.

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Option #4: Use a Third-Party App

If you don’t want to employ any of the above methods, you can consider using a third-party app. Several apps are available that claim to hide Instagram followers, but you need to exercise some caution before using them; they may violate Instagram’s privacy terms and conditions.

Here’s the list of some of the top third-party apps:

#1) FollowMeter: This is the simplest way to manage followers on an Instagram account. It tracks followers and identifies users who unfollowed you or who do not follow back.

#2) Followers Pro: This is another useful app that allows you to hide your followers on Instagram. It also helps in tracking new flowers and seeing who doesn’t follow back you.

#3) InstaFollow: The InstaFollow app offers features like finding who unfollowed you on Instagram and who doesn’t follow you, tracking lost and gained followers, fans, and so on.

Limitations:

While logging in to these apps, sometimes they ask for your Instagram credentials, which increases the risk of cyber fraud if the app isn’t trustworthy. These apps violate Instagram’s privacy policy, which could cause your account suspension or permanent ban. So, it’s better to review Instagram’s terms of service before using any of them.

Possible Reasons for Hiding Instagram Followers

Before we start, remind yourself if you have ever hidden your Instagram followers before. If it’s your first time, it might seem like an unusual thing to do. After all, we all are using Instagram to get more followers. Although it’s a valid point, we still need to consider several factors while addressing Instagram followers, including:

#1) Privacy Concerns: It is a critical factor for most of us, as sometimes we want to post some private views on Instagram with limited access. You can choose to keep your follower list private on Instagram helps to maintain your privacy.

I have a public Instagram ID, and I have hidden my followers’ list because I do not want to showcase my followers’ list and put their Instagram ID at risk. So, if you have similar thoughts to me, then you should learn how to hide your followers on Instagram.

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#2) Prevent Unnecessary Attention: With a growing following, hiding a followers list on Instagram can help prevent unwanted attention from certain followers. For instance, people love to go through Instagram profiles and check their followers’ lists.

If they find something unusual, then some people have it in them to make a fuss about everything. If you are not interested in that, then it is better to keep your followers hidden.

#3) Business Usage: Running a business on Instagram means keeping the follower list private. Marketers use social media to collect data to learn their competitors’ strategies, and Instagram plays a huge role in that. The followers’ list can reveal details, like the target audience that you are targeting. That’s why it is hiding your business strategy from others by hiding your followers’ list.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Conclusion

Knowing how to hide Instagram followers is an easy and effective way to maintain your privacy and reduce social pressure. It can also provide you with better control over the information you share and decide who can see your content. To help you, this guide provided you with four effective methods on how to hide my followers on Instagram.

These include making your account private, manually removing users, blocking users, or using third-party apps to hide your followers. Following these effective methods can easily conceal your accounts and add an extra layer of protection to your digital presence.

Whether you prefer to make your account private or block users, these crucial ways to help you stay safe on Instagram. However, hiding your followers has a few drawbacks, which can be manageable with the right approach. So, don’t be afraid to try these proven ways and enjoy a positive and secure experience on Instagram.

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