My Instagram profile probably reveals more personal details about me than any other social network page. As a result, I started to get creeped out after I realized just how many people were following me I didn’t actually know. Locking down your privacy on Instagram can be as simple as setting your profile to private. It can also prevent the Anonymous Instagram viewer and save your account.
But you can get a lot more granular than that, and there is a range of other protections you can put in place. You can keep your account public but make it a little more protected, or even add stricter protections than simply flipping the private profile switch gives you. If you really want to keep your account safe, here’s what you can do.
Set your Account to Private
Setting up your account personally is the easiest thing you can do to block your profile. This means that in the future, no one will be able to see your pictures or stories without approval. If your account is personal, new people who visit your profile will only see your name and profile picture. From there, they can ask you to follow them, and you need to confirm their requirements before you can see your photos or stories.
Protect your Stories
Instagram allows you to limit the number of photos that will disappear after 24 hours and prevent people from sharing them more. To hide your story from certain people, go to Settings> Privacy> History, select Hide story. This will open your subscriber list. Tap the circle next to their name to shorten the entry.
Make yourself Less Visible
There are a few things that make it a little harder to find yourself and in the process, give less information about yourself. First, you can stop sending your contacts to Instagram. It helps you find your friends when you sign up, but that means you know who’s in your Instagram phonebook, to turn it off: Go to Settings> Account> Sync Contacts, turn off Connecting Contacts.
Step Saving your Stories & Pots
You may not want to save the photos and videos you post on Instagram, especially your lost stories. There are several things you can do to stop this. Go to Settings> Privacy> History, turn off both settings. The first is to save to a camera clip-on iOS or to Gallery on Android, which will save your stories to your phone. The second is to save to the Archive and disable this option to prevent Instagram from linking to your stories so you can see them later once they’re gone.
If you also want to save your posts on Instagram, go to Settings> Account> Original messages. Remove the three options: save original messages, save printed photos, and save printed videos. This will prevent messages from being stored locally on your phone, but that means your only copy will be on Instagram.