It’s important that we maintain a strong connection with friends, family, and even clients or colleagues on Instagram.
Because Instagram is so important for our online presence, it’s not really viable to pretend we don’t have an account to avoid certain people.
It’s not uncommon to follow people that we care about but we may not want to see their content.
Perhaps it’s a colleague, or a friend from highschool, or even a relative— you may want to keep following them, but you just don’t like what they’re posting.
Instead of hurting their feelings or leaving bad blood between you, you have an alternative. Instagram offers you an easy way to avoid seeing certain content without having to unfollow the user.
This option is known as Mute.
In this article, we’ll let you know all of the details about muting someone on Instagram, how to do it, and even how to undo it. Let’s get started.
Effects of Muting Someone on Instagram
So, what happens when you mute something on Instagram? Well, it’s pretty simple.
Muting someone on Instagram is basically taking a break from them and their content. You keep following them, but none of their content will appear in your news feed.
The person that you muted will still be able to see all of your content as normal, and you can still search for and visit each others’ profiles.
Another great thing is that there isn’t any notification that goes out to the user that you muted, so they should have no idea, at least officially. This brings us to our next section— has anyone muted your profile and you have no idea?
How can you tell if someone muted you on Instagram?
How to Tell if Someone Muted You on Instagram
As with other social media blocking features, such as the Unfollow feature on Facebook, there is no real way to know if someone has unfollowed you or muted you on a social media platform.
Instagram’s Mute feature is no different— there is no tangible way to know or confirm that someone muted your content.
You can, however, look for some small signs if you have a suspicion that an account has muted you and find out whether or not based on some common patterns.
Here’s how to tell if someone muted you on Instagram:
- Keep an eye out for the person who you think muted you on Instagram
- If you find that this user is constantly liking other Instagram posts but never yours, they may have muted you.
- Also, if you previously saw engagement such as likes or comments from this user, or even story views, but they’ve become non-existant, it’s likely that the user muted you on Instagram.
- Check the viewer list of your Instagram stories
- If they used to view your IG stories but they don’t now, they may have muted you.
The only real way to know if you’ve been muted, though, is to ask someone directly.
How to Mute Someone on Instagram
If you’re fed up with a user’s post and need to do something about it without unfollowing, you’re in the right place. This section will cover how to mute someone on Instagram.
You can mute a user’s Instagram stories content, Instagram posts in the news feed, or both. You can even mute direct messages on Instagram, which we’ll discuss in a bit.
Let’s start with how to mute Instagram posts.
Mute Instagram Posts
If you’ve been looking for the Mute option but can’t seem to find it, it’s because the option has been moved.
Previously, you could tap the three dots above a post and you could select mute. Now, you must do it from the blue “following” button on the user’s main Instagram profile.
Here’s how to mute Instagram posts:
- Visit the profile of the user whose posts you want to mute
- Tap the blue Following button underneath their IG bio
- You’ll see four options: add to close friends list, mute, restrict, and unfollow
- Tap Mute
- The posts from this person will effectively be muted and they will not appear in your Instagram’s newsfeed.
Muting someone isn’t the same as restricting them. When you restrict a user, they won’t be able to see when you’re online or see when you read their messages.
Further, if they leave a comment on your post, the comment will only be visible to them and you, no other users on Instagram. You will still see their posts in your news feed.
Mute Instagram Stories
Muting Instagram stories needs to be done from within the Instagram story itself.
To mute a user on Instagram stories:
- View the story of the user you want to mute
- Tap the three horizontal dots in the top right corner of the Instagram story
- Among the options available, select Mute
- All future stories will no longer appear in your stories feed
It’s a very simple process to mute Instagram stories, especially when a user posts a huge quantity and it becomes too much.
How to Mute Messages on Instagram
Muting direct messages isn’t the same as muting posts or stories on Instagram; when you mute a user on DMs the notifications will be silenced but you’ll still get the messages.
You can also still respond to the messages without any problem.
It’s a very simple process to mute messages on Instagram:
- Open the Instagram app and navigate to your DM inbox (top right corner, icon looks like a paper airplane)
- Tap on the conversation you want to mute
- Once the message is open, tap the three dots in the top right corner
- Select the Mute option to stop all notifications for this massage ender
- The notifications for this conversation will effectively be finished
How to Unmute Someone on Instagram
If you change your mind later and want to unmute someone, you can easily do that too without sending them any notification.
Simply follow the steps that we did in the previous sections and instead of selecting mute, you’ll select Unmuete. You’ll then see their content as you normally would without any issue.
Fun-Fact: Did you know that Growthoid also offers the ability to buy Google reviews?
Final Thoughts: Muting on Instagram
With so many users on Instagram, we may want to decongest our news feed and be more selective about what we see on a regular basis. Having a large Instagram following can mean it could get distracting, so mute some users will help clear that clutter.
Understanding what happens when you mute someone on Instagram is the first step in creating a news feed that you’re excited to check out.
Don’t worry— no one that you mute on Instagram will ever know, since there are no notifications to alert an account o and your secret is safe with us!
