When it comes to third-party apps that promise to hide followers users should be cautious due to their unreliable nature and safety risks.
Instagram restricts its privacy capabilities through design choices due to their need to monitor user connections.
Creating different accounts remains the best option for users who wish to maintain separate personal and professional lives.
Last night while scrolling down my newsfeed on instagram there was this some sort of unknown account which I think I don’t even remember how did I add it to my follow list but all of a sudden this account started to go through my followers list.
What. The. Actual.Nonsense…
And this is not the first time they have faced such problems. It’s disturbing to know that people thought your friends and acquaintances to be their property which they can always search through at such odd hours.
I have wasted far too much of my life trying to fathom Instagram’s confusing-as-all-hell privacy settings.
And here’s what is upsetting- Instagram was not interested in giving us real options for privacy.
But after some investigation (and even some phone calls with friends and acquaintances who are developers) I have found a few. In this article i will tell you about How to exactly Hide Followers on Instagram with simple steps.
If you are tired of people stalking your friends- your employer pointing at your dubious Snapshot photos through the mutual contacts list, or your ex-boyfriend, for instance, mapping your entire social network- I have something great for you.
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Summary
If you are one of many Instagram users who worry about people viewing their followers list, then this article is for you!
Instagram does not provide a straightforward option to hide your follower list, but there are workarounds.
Your privacy will improve by flipping your account to private status and performing occasional followers lists purges or enabling the “Close Friends” feature to regulate audience access.
Why Would Anyone Want One’s Followers To Be hide?
Look, I’m not here to judge. Importantly, besides the privacy concerns, there are rational instances as to why you would not wish your follower list to be seen by the public-
Perhaps you are making different audiences for different purposes (my the followers of my side business should not mix with my private life).
Maybe you’re creating separate audiences for different things (my side business followers need not intermingle with my personal life)
Or maybe you’re just an individual who values his/her privacy in today’s generation, do not feel compelled to get your ‘friends’ list to include your mom, bestfriend and the girl/boy you had a crush on in high school.
Whether it may be so or not, it is none of anyone’s goddamn business. The problem? It is for this reason that Instagram understands that connection data is important and thus does not make the process of hiding this stuff easy.
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How to hide followers on Instagram business account?
As a manager of business accounts, this is especially frustrating one for me. There is a reason that business accounts CAN NOT be set to private, it’s not even an option in the settings.
Your limited options-
Log in and out from personal account (private) to the one you are using for research (cluttery and may hinder your analysis)
Remove followers you don’t want manually
For stories, at least they should be saved for close friends by moving the lever of sharing status updates to “Close Friends.”
I have explained this to clients many times and they have never liked it. Instagram wants business accounts to be found, that is their directive, so that they can ensure all the profit.
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Annoying Truth About Instagram Privacy?
I honestly wanted to say that there’s an easy way to hide followers. There isn’t.
I learned this lesson the hard way when a potential client told me he found me “through a mutual connection”- someone I don’t recall even accepting as a follower. Cue the privacy panic.
After spending time and effort in exploring the settings, these are the findings on what IG can offer!
Option 1: Go Private (The Nuclear Approach)
This is the only “official” method to completely hide your follower list-
Tap your profile pic in the lower corner
From the right-hand corner you can press the hamburger menu which contains three vertical lines.
Find “Settings and privacy”
Go to “Privacy”
Turn on the “Private account” toggle
Private accounts display the following changes after selection-
Posts can no longer show up during hashtag search results.
New Individuals cannot discover you if your account disapproval status remains in effect.
Your reach basically tanks
For personal accounts? Maybe worth it. For anything business-related? Kind of a disaster.
Option 2: My Sneaky Workaround That Works
This is what I do if going private appears to be an extreme issue:
I routinely sort my follower list. Like once minimum once a month.
Visit your profile.
Under “Followers,”
In your case, it will be all the people who look as if they are out of their minds, moving around aimlessly, or just anyone you do not wish to spy on.
Use the three dots of the list close to their name.
Choose “Remove.”
The best thing about it is There won’t be notification to them. If they particularly check your profile once more, they will only come to see they are not following you anymore.
Is it minor? Possessive. Is that working? Definitely.
Option 3: The Close Friends Hack
This allows you to decide Who sees your daily posts and not Who follows you?
Look through your profile.
Tapping it by swiping from the left to the right starting at the top will reveal the hamburger menu.
Track “Close Friends”.
That is, your genuine friends – the friends whom you would not mind having around when you are in your worst state.
You can then post to just those people only. Having done this for roughly a year, it has totally changed my use of Instagram.
This is why I am very choosy when choosing the public feed that I read from. It is worth to note that actual crap only occurs in my Close Friends stories.
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How to hide followers on Instagram from friends?
It’s important to note that the iPhone Instagram app does not possess a unique feature to that of an Android. Despite searching through every iOS-specific setting, there’s nothing unique there.
Nonetheless, there’s one particular way to use Screen Time restrictions specifically on an iPhone.
Prevent App usage by setting restrictions and time limits for Instagram
Limit specific features during times when certain people might be snooping
It doesn’t directly hide your followers but can hamper the working of the app when you don’t desire persons to glance through your shoulder.
What About Instagram Third-Party "Privacy" Apps?
Finally, ensure that you do not spend your money because you will have to use your login information to unlock the next edition of the paper.
I have also attempted to use at least four fake followers app and none of them worked. All they did was-
Direct them to my password (red flag)
Show me ads
Do absolutely nothing helpful
Unfortunately, the current api of Instagram does not support these services and any application promising such services is either untruthful or utilises potentially infringing methods that may cause your account to be banned.
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How to hide followers and following on Instagram from friends?
Instagram does not allow users to hide connections selectively from a particular person. Your connections appear to the entire community or to no audience at all.
My approach to hide my connections has been as follows-
I went to the settings section to make my account temporary private status active.
I will delete the particular friends whom I wish to keep hidden from viewing my profile.
Wait a couple weeks
When needed users can switch their profile setting to public view
Not elegant, but effective. Blocking your content from select friends will prompt some of them to try following again even though you want to block their visibility. At that point simply dismiss their requests.
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How to hide your following list on Instagram without private account?
I devoted countless hours to searching for it. The answer sucks: you can’t. Not officially. Instagram deliberately makes your following list public on any non-private account.
The “social network” business model includes this feature as a fundamental part.
The closest workaround I’ve found-
Specifically block users whose viewing your following list should be restricted
They won’t see your profile at all, which includes your following list
Yeah, it’s extreme. The method functions if you need to block analysis of your following actions.
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Conclusion
While people do not want to share too much information on Instagram, Instagram does not want its users to be private either.
After years of trying several strategies, I have come to see Instagram purposefully makes this difficult. Our connection means a rich source of data they can make money from.
Thus, Your actual choices are only those of-
Go private and give up reach.
Influence people (though time-consuming) directly by personally managing the followers.
Set aside separate accounts for various uses- what I finally did.
Now I have a private account where I really publish the stuff I care about and one public-facing account for my work materials. Though it’s not perfect, that is the compromise I have made.
Regarding you, what? Your approach to Instagram privacy is what? If you have found other tricks, let me know, I am in a constant search of new tricks that can fend off creepers.
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FAQ
A verified badge gives you zero extra privacy powers. Believe me, I dealt with verified accounts, and they also have the same limitations.
Business accounts still have only two fundamental options.
Keep all the settings to the ‘Private’ profile (Yes, even though your account is confirmed, it can be a private one).
Manually manage followers
The catch? If you have a verified account, going private may adversely affect your growth and discovery. However, to the best of my knowledge of verified users, they just consider privacy to be the cost of doing business.
It annoys me that as of we are in 2025 already and Instagram has no follower privacy controls. Shocking, I know.
The most recent tack people are taking-
Instagram’s newer “Close Circle” feature (not to be confused with Close Friends) allows you to create a second feed visible only to selected followers.
Abuse of the Hide Story From tool
Subject: Third-party privacy apps dont work, never did.
All the 2025 features that I’ve put up to the test, none of them actually have the follower privacy that we want.
I followed this Reddit enthralling rabbit hole last month as well. Based on the rankings of r/Instagram as of this date, the highest-upvoted solutions include-
The soft block method includes blocking the targeted person then unbanning them (they are unfollowed and ejected and made a notification).
Alt accounts for different circles
Using the “restrict” option (This doesn’t hide the target user from followers but will only prevent him/her from commenting or sending message to other users).
Reddit hack that sort of works: rapidly subscribing a few hundred more random accounts so that the actual ones become hidden. Chaotic but effective
The iPhone Instagram app does not have such features more than the Android version that is specific to Instagram security. There is nothing in the iOS-specific settings all that we can see.
One iPhone-specific workaround, however, employs Screen Time restrictions-
Enable Screen Time for Instagram restrictions
Some features may include the following, while attempting to limit some of the areas where some people could be spying on others.
It doesn’t remove your followers but it makes some things behave strangely so to help you reduce your phone usage and tricks when someone tries to look at your phone and you don’t want them to.
The direct approach-
Go to Settings
Tap Privacy
Toggle "Private Account" on
But that is the only way to hide your following list officially. The that remains is either hack or work-around.
I do not think there is any possible settings that can be changed in this app. This is the only one that actually works, though it only hides your following list from people with whom you are not connected.
You cannot hide your friends list from just a few of your followers.
On Instagram, it’s all or nothing.
Your realistic options-
It is also suggested to make your account as secure as possible and accept only familiar contacts
As you don’t speak a word, I thought that you didn’t wish for anything.
Use a range of social accounts on other social networking sites
I use a mix of the last two options [some riskier, but gives me the privacy I want].
Yes! And this is among the very few privacy controls that Instagram gets correct.
To hide from a certain follower without the social stigma of blocking:
Go to your follower list
Find the person
If you wish to view the notification settings of a specific user, click on the three dots located on the right side of the user’s username.
Choose "Remove"
They won't get notified. Or, they can be “Restricted” which greatly lessens the interaction with the account but still does not remove them from seeing it.
This I did with an ex-colleague who was abnormally too involved in my posts as if his life depended on it. He never even noticed.
This is one of Instagram’s few unintentional privacy features.
That is different in case of Instagram and specifically for accounts that have hundreds of thousands of followers, it just does not load the list.
Instagram now favors “relevant” connections up front
This person unfollowed the account from you
I have tested this with a friend and in their account with --50k+ followers -- but I only saw around 10k - I tried scrolling for hours.
Occasionally, technical limitations on Instagram are in our privacy favor. This is a rare case of one of those.
