Instagram is supposed to be a fun, friendly and community-fueled app. It shouldn’t be a place of pressure, negativity, and bullying. If somebody is pestering you, it’s important to know how to block people on Instagram so that you can live your best Instagram life without them bothering you!
Why Block People On Instagram
There are, of course, a lot of reasons why you might feel the need to block someone on Instagram. We’ll give a couple of examples. These might remind you that there’s somebody like this lurking on your Instagram and you might decide it’s finally time to block them!
1. Exes
When you go through a breakup, it’s so easy to glue yourself to their social media profiles. Of course, it’s natural to want to keep tabs on what they’re doing now. Instagram makes it super easy to see what someone is doing, when they’ve last been online and what kind of posts they’ve been liking.
However, it doesn’t necessarily make it easy to get over someone if you’re constantly checking in on them! It’s a good idea to show yourself some tough love and block your ex on Instagram, even if only for a little while.
It’s important to give yourself time to move on.
2. Spam Accounts
With there being over 1 billion Instagram users, it’s obvious that not every account is legitimate. Unfortunately, there are a lot of spam or bot accounts that are run by companies around the world. You might have noticed them commenting on your pictures every now and then. It’s more likely they’ll flock to your account if you use popular hashtags, so try to avoid these!
A quick block to these accounts is a great idea! Of course, more might come to your account later, but at least the same ones can’t comment again and again once you’ve blocked them.
3. Stealing Content
The more followers you have, the more you’ll be familiar with this problem. There are people out there who will steal your photos and unfortunately, even pretend to be you! They might steal your captions, Instagram bio, photos and do a knock off of your username.
It’s easy to steal photos nowadays because all it takes is a screenshot. However, blocking these people means they can’t access your photos anymore! It doesn’t solve the overall problem but it puts an end to that person trying to impersonate you on Instagram.
4. Someone Annoying You
You can block people on Instagram simply for annoying you. We all have that one distant family member who insists on commenting on every single thing you post! Of course, you can block them if you’re brave enough. Of course, they don’t ever need to know that.
5. Underage Followers
If you’re in a job that works with kids, it’s likely they will try to look you up on social media. It’s important to keep your accounts private and secure, but that doesn’t mean the kids won’t find a way to stalk your Instagram. If you get the chance to find their accounts, block them on Instagram so that they can’t view your content anymore.
Now that we’ve given five reasons why you might block people on Instagram, think of a few more. Next, we’ll show you how exactly to do this.
How To Block People On Instagram
Blocking people on Instagram is easy, but it’s also awesome because the people you block never need to know.
Instagram will not notify someone when you’ve blocked them. Of course, if they’re familiar with the app, they might figure it out for themselves, but it won’t be obvious to them unless they go searching for your account.
- Access the account you want to block. Maybe they’ll pop up in your timeline and you’ll be reminded. Otherwise, simply time in their name or username into your search bar to find their account.
- Click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner.
- Next, click block.
- Confirm you want to block their account by selecting “Block” again.
- They are now blocked. You can unblock them at any time from their profile.
How To Unblock People On Instagram
Having shown you the steps to block someone, it’s important to know how to unblock people if you ever want to let them back into your Instagram!
Of course, you can unblock them from their profile at any time, as Instagram told you. However, it’s hard to remember every single person you’ve blocked on Instagram!
Thankfully, there’s an easy way to see everyone you’ve blocked and how to unblock them.
- Go to your Instagram profile.
- Access your settings.
- Choose “Privacy”.
- Select “Blocked Accounts”.
- You’ll see a list of all the accounts you’ve previously blocked.
- Click the one you want to unblock.
- Click the three dots in the top right-hand corner.
- Select “Unblock”.
- To confirm, click “Unblock again”.
This account will be able to see your Instagram content again. If they were following you before, they will need to refollow you.
While we’ve covered how to block and unblock someone, there are few things to note!
First, while Instagram doesn’t notify someone if you’ve blocked them, they might still be able to figure it out. When you block someone on Instagram and they search your account name into the search bar, they won’t come up. It’s like you don’t exist. However, if someone is tagging you in captions or photos, the blocked account will still be able to see your username exists. Plus, they can always ask their friends to check. They might put the pieces together to figure out they’ve been blocked.
Also, if someone tags their username in a caption, if you’re blocked, you literally cannot click on the username! So it’s not too difficult to figure out that someone has blocked you on Instagram.
Another thing to note is you can block people that aren’t following you. You can block private accounts, too.
Lastly, when you unblock an account, you won’t be following them anymore. You’ll need to refollow if you want to see their posts on your feed again.
What To Do If You Don’t Want To Block Someone On Instagram
Thankfully, Instagram has great solutions if you don’t want to block someone but you want to have the same effects. Of course, it might be awkward to block your mum on Instagram, but you don’t necessarily want to see all her posts, or give her free reign to comment on every single thing you post! That’s why there are two great options.
Mute Accounts On Instagram
The first option is to mute accounts on Instagram instead of blocking people.
This is a great option for that classmate or colleague you have that posts every single thing they do, eat or see. However, it might be too awkward to block them because you have to see them almost every day. Instead, you can mute them.
What happens when you mute someone is you don’t see their posts in your timeline. The only way you’ll see their posts if you search their username and visit their profile that way.
They will literally be muted from your timeline! Of course, they can still see your content in their feed and timeline, unless they mute you, too.
To mute someone, you have to be following them. In order to mute them, click the tab that says “following”.
You will get the option to mute them. Click that button. You can choose to mute their posts and/or stories. This is great if you follow someone who posts awesome feed posts but spammy stories. You will have the option to continue to see their posts, but not their stories. Of course, you can still see their stories if you go to their page, so you won’t be missing everything if you are overcome with curiosity one day!
Restrict People On Instagram
The other option is to restrict accounts. This is a new feature on Instagram, but it’s really great!
When you restrict an account, you protect yourself from unwanted interactions without the other person knowing. Only you and this other person will see their comments on your posts. So for example, if someone was commenting something nasty on your posts every day, you could restrict them so your other followers wouldn’t see! However, you can approve their comment so that everyone can see if you are okay with that.
Lastly, they won’t know when you’re online or if you’ve read their messages. This is great for those needy friends or partners who always check if you’ve been online!
To restrict someone on Instagram, follow the same steps as how to block people on Instagram, but choose “restrict” instead of block. You can restrict someone at any time. You also have a tab under settings for restricted accounts so that you don’t forget everyone you’ve restricted! Instagram definitely keeps everything organized for you.
Also, you don’t have to be following someone to restrict them. They don’t have to be following you either.
Emergency Situation
If none of these options are working for you, or the account is toxic to the Instagram community, the best thing to do is to report the account. Follow the same steps on how to block people on Instagram, except choose to report. You will have the option to choose “It’s Spam” or “It’s Inappropriate”.
Once you click either of these options, the profile will automatically be reported. Instagram will not give you another chance to decide if you’re sure you want to do this. Do not use this option unless it’s true, otherwise, you might jeopardize this person’s account.
Once you’ve reported the account, Instagram will block the account, too. Therefore you don’t have to deal with their nonsense!
In this case, nothing might happen with their account but it’s always worth reporting if it truly is a spam or inappropriate account!