10 Instagram Life Hacks Every User Should Know
Since I deleted my Facebook account , Instagram has taken its place as the social network I most often visit to see what my friends are up to. I’ve been using the app for about 15 years, and during that time, I’ve learned a few tricks that improve the user experience (or at least make it less annoying). Here are 10 Instagram life hacks that will improve your privacy, reduce the amount of irrelevant content in your feed, help you reset the algorithm, and more.
Use Instagram filters to block spam messages and comments and clean up your feed.
On any social media platform, I like to set up filters to mute offensive keywords, but you can use keywords to block almost anything you don’t want to see. On Instagram, you can use filters to easily block spam comments and offensive messages. While you can customize your filter list, I simply found a list of offensive phrases and quickly added it to my Instagram account, then added a few more terms.
You can do the same by going to your Instagram profile page and tapping the three-line menu in the upper right corner. This will open the “Settings & Activity” page, where you can select “Hidden Words.” This allows you to add multiple words, separating them with commas. Once added, Instagram will block comments and messages containing these words.
You can also add keywords that can mute posts from appearing in your feed. Go to Instagram Settings > Content Settings > Specific Words and Phrases . On the Content Settings page, navigate to the “Sensitive Content” and “Political Content” sections, and you can restrict the appearance of these types of posts and videos in your feed.
Reconfigure the Instagram algorithm.
Every now and then, my Instagram algorithm goes crazy, and I have to reset it. After all, I mostly open the app to check friends’ updates and cat videos, and as soon as my feed starts showing too much Hyrox content (a sport I’m completely uninterested in), I know I’m in trouble. If this happens to you, there are two ways to reprogram your feed. The easiest option is to simply find a video you like (say, a cat video) and swipe up a few times until you reach a non-cat video, then go to another page. Repeat this process a few times, and your feed will again consist of more cat videos and less Hyrox (or whatever else).
If that doesn’t help, or if your feed has changed too much for the worse, you can go to Instagram Settings > Content Settings > Reset Suggested Content to completely reset it.
Remove tracking links from Instagram.
When you share any post, video, story, or other content on Instagram, the app tracks who you share it with, even if you send the link outside of Instagram. You can see this by tapping the “Share” button on any post and selecting “Copy Link.” Paste this link into any text editor, such as Apple Notes or Google Keep, and you’ll see tracking parameters at the end of the link, such as “?igsh=…” or “?utm….” This helps Instagram identify that you’ve shared the link.
It’s not possible to disable tracking, but you can manually remove it from each link before sending. Simply paste the URL as usual, then delete everything after the question mark.
Force Instagram to open links in direct messages in your preferred browser.
When you open a link on Instagram, the app opens it in its built-in browser. This is the least privacy-friendly option, as Instagram can easily track your browsing activity. You can partially prevent this by tapping the three-dot button in the upper-right corner of Instagram’s built-in browser and selecting “Open in external browser.”
It’s not possible to set this as the default setting for all links, but you can set it as the default setting for links received via direct messages. To do this, go to Instagram Settings > Website & App Permissions > Links in Messages and enable “Open in External Browser.”
Limit the number of notifications on Instagram.
After you post something, Instagram starts bombarding you with notifications every time someone interacts with your post. Even if you don’t use Instagram for a day or two, you’ll still receive numerous notifications from the app. I don’t have this problem because I never allow Instagram to send notifications to my devices, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. If you don’t want to turn off notifications completely, you can choose to only receive useful notifications from Instagram. To do this, go to Instagram Settings > Notifications and review all the available options. I especially like the “Messages Only” option, which only sends me a notification when someone direct messages me within the app.
To further limit notifications, go to the “Subscriptions and Followers” section on this page and disable “Account Suggestions.” Similarly, you can go to the “Messages” section and disable message reminders and all channel notification settings. You can also go to the “Calls” section and disable video chats , which will also disable video calls on Instagram, which I never wanted to use.
Hide your online status and turn off read receipts on Instagram.
For some reason, Instagram shows other people when you’re online. If you want to be more discreet, go to Instagram Settings > Messages and Stories Replies > Show Activity Status and turn this setting off. (On the previous page, you can select “Show Read Receipts” and turn this off to prevent others from seeing whether you’ve read their messages.)
Hide the typing indicator in Instagram messages
When someone messages you on Instagram, the app displays an animation indicating they’re typing. More often than not, this feature only makes me keep the app open longer while the other person is typing, which is probably Instagram’s intention. If you don’t want to see the typing indicator in your chat, you can disable it: open any Instagram chat and tap the contact’s name at the top. Go to “Privacy & Security” and disable the typing indicator . Unfortunately, you’ll have to do this manually for each of your Instagram chats.
Enable end-to-end encryption to make Instagram more secure.
Instagram chats are unencrypted by default, meaning the company can read all your messages. If you want to increase security, consider enabling end-to-end encryption for your chats. Like Telegram, Instagram hides the end-to-end encryption feature and requires you to manually enable it for each chat. You can do this by opening any Instagram chat, tapping the contact’s name at the top, and selecting “Privacy and Security” > “Use End-to-End Encryption.”
Automatically clear your Instagram search history.
Every time you try to search something on Instagram, your search history appears. This can be embarrassing if you find something really stupid (or slightly offensive) and someone else sees it. To avoid this, you can clear your search history by tapping the Instagram search bar and selecting “Clear All,” or by tapping the “X” next to each search query.
However, there is also a way to automatically clear your Instagram search history: go to Instagram Settings > Account Center > Your Info & Permissions > Search History > Keep searches for , and select 3 days , which is the minimum time to automatically delete your searches.
Reset your Instagram ad settings to protect your data.
It’s not possible to block ads on Instagram, but you can reduce the amount of data Instagram uses to show you these ads. Simply go to Instagram Settings > Account Center > Ad Settings > Manage Your Information . You can review each item on this page and disable all available options. Under “Categories Used to Show You Ads,” select “Remove” for each option.
In these two categories, you can select “Don’t allow us to…” : “Ads in other apps” and “Ads on Meta.” Finally, you can select “Ad partner activity information” > “Verification settings” and select “No, don’t improve the relevance of my ads.”