Instagram has just made a change to its platform to depressurize people’s experience on the app. Now, new options are available for both posts and profiles. Users are able to hide the number of likes and views, as well as their own. These new features have been in testing since 2019 but now they’re being globally rolled out.
Despite the controversy surrounding their latest decision, Instagram has said that removing likes had a minimal effect on users’ behaviors. The steps below outline how to find the new Instagram app’s mobile options.
How to Hide Instagram Likes on Your Own Posts on iPhone
The option to hide Instagram-like counts on your own posts can be found in the three-dotted menu for each post. This is a per-post option that cannot be applied to all your existing posts simultaneously.
- Open Instagram on your iPhone.
- Touch your profile image in the tab area found alongside the bottom.
- Scroll through your feed and tap your own post whose likes you’d like to hide.
- Tap three dots in the top-right corner above the post, then choose Hide Like Count.
This will hide the number of likes this particular post has received from both you and others.
You can unhide a post’s likes by selecting Unhide Like Count from the menu.
What happens when you hide Instagram likes on your own posts
Instagram will no longer display the most recent account that liked your post as well as the number of likes. So, instead of seeing “liked by jhonwalker and 582 others,” you’ll see just “liked by jhonwalker and others,” with no indication of the number of likes the post receives.
You can tap this line again to see everyone who has liked the post. Remember that the number of post likes is displayed on this screen. According to the feature’s description, “only you can see the total number of likes on this post.”
How to Hide Instagram Likes from Other Accounts on iPhone
The option to hide Instagram-like counts on other people’s posts is available in the new Posts section of Instagram settings, and it applies to all posts in your feed.
- Open Instagram on your iPhone.
- Tap your profile image in the tab area alongside the bottom.
- Tap the hamburger menu in the top-right with three horizontal lines stacked on top.
- Choose Settings from the menu.
- Now select Privacy in the Instagram settings.
- Choose Posts underneath the Interactions heading.
- Slide the toggle next to Hide Like and View Counts to the ON position.
This will hide the likes and view counts for any posts from other accounts.
As mentioned earlier, this control applies to all the posts in your feed.
If you don’t see the new Posts section, check back a few days or weeks later. This feature is being released in stages, meaning that it won’t suddenly appear for all users at once.
