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.
Set your account to private from the Instagram app on your Android or iOS device
- Go to your profile, then tap .
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Privacy > Account Privacy.
- Tap next to Private Account to make your account private.
Set your account to private on your computer or mobile browser
- Go to instagram.com on your computer or mobile browser.
- Click , then click .
- Click Privacy and Security.
- Below Account Privacy, click 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 Activity, where you can approve or ignore them.
- 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.