If you don’t want to see Instagram posts or stories from a particular user that you follow, you should know how to mute someone on Instagram. You can easily mute a follower’s stories or posts without them ever knowing. It’s a much more subtle and temporary solution to unfollowing or blocking.
Muting a user means you’re still connected them (i.e., you still follow them) but their content no longer appears in your home feed. Muting also differs from blocking a user, which disconnects you from them and prevents them from seeing your profile and being able to reach you.
What Does Mute Mean on Instagram?
Instagram’s mute feature for posts and stories is handy for several reasons. By muting users, you can:
- Feel less overwhelmed by all the content you have to look at if you follow a large number of users.
- Stop seeing someone’s posts or stories without disconnecting from them and risking the chance of them noticing you’ve unfollowed them.
- Temporarily stop seeing posts or stories about an ongoing event until it’s over (like someone’s vacation stories, posts about a wedding, etc).
- Choose to mute someone first and then decide later whether you want to permanently unfollow them.
- Prioritize content from users you actually want to see.
Instagram lets you mute both a user’s posts and stories separately (if you want to see one but not the other), with an option to mute both at the same time too.
How to Mute An Instagram User’s Stories
Stories appear at the top of your feed in a horizontal line as profile bubbles. Here’s how to stop seeing a particular user’s profile bubble from showing up there.
- Navigate to your home feed by tapping the home icon in the bottom menu and locate the story of the user you want to mute in your stories feed at the top.
- Tap and hold the user’s profile bubble.
- A list of options will appear. Tap Mute.
- To confirm, tap Mute Story
- The user’s profile bubble will turn slightly transparent and will be sent to the end of your stories feed.
How to Mute An Instagram User’s Posts
You can mute a specific user’s photo and video posts so that they no longer appear in your main home feed.
- Navigate to your home feed by tapping the home icon in the bottom menu and find the post of the user you want to mute in your main feed.
- Tap the three dots in the top right of the user’s post.
- Tap Mute from the list of options that appear.
- To confirm, tap Mute Posts.
- The user’s posts will disappear from your home feed.
How to Unmute Users’ Stories From the Stories Feed
Instagram makes it pretty easy for you to unmute users’ stories if you want to start seeing them in your stories feed again.
- To unmute a user’s stories, you can scroll to the very end of your stories feed and locate the transparent profile bubble of the user you want to unmute.
- Tap and hold the user’s profile bubble.
- Tap Unmute from the list of options that appear.
- The user’s profile bubble will be restored in your stories feed.
How to Unmute a User’s Stories or Posts From Their Profile
If you want to unmute a user’s stories and/or posts, you can do it from their profile.
- Navigate to the muted user’s profile.
- Tap the Following button.
- Tap Mute.
- Turn either the Stories button or Posts button off so that they appear gray instead of blue.
How to See Who You’ve Muted
Forgot who you muted? Instagram keeps a running list of your muted users in your privacy settings.
- Navigate to your profile by tapping your profile icon in the bottom menu.
- Tap the menu icon in the top right corner.
- Tap Settings.
- · Tap Privacy.
- · Under Connections, tap Muted Accounts.
- · Tap any user to go to their profile and optionally unmute them by following the steps in the section above.
