Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a lifestyle photographer used to grow from 0 to 600,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.
General Instagram hacks
1. Stop seeing posts or stories from accounts you follow but don’t love
You don’t want to see any more of your aunt’s ferret videos, but you don’t want to hurt her feelings with an unfollow, either. The solution? Give her a mute!
How to do it:
Method 1
Go to the account you want to mute
Tap the Following button
Click mute
From there, you can choose whether to mute posts, or mute posts and Stories from the account
You can also mute posts and Stories by pressing and holding on a Story in your tray, or from a profile
Method 2
From your feed, find a post from the person you’d like to mute and click the three dots on the top right hand corner of the post
Click mute
From there, you can choose whether to mute posts, or mute posts and Stories from the account
You can also mute posts and Stories by pressing and holding on a Story in your tray, or from a profile
2. Rearrange filters
Keep Amaro at your fingertips and get Nashville out of your sight by customizing your menu of filter options.
How to do it:
When posting a photo or video, go to Filter
Scroll to the end of your filters and tap Manage
Press and hold the three line icon next to each filter on the left-hand side of the screen to rearrange the order of your filters
Check or uncheck the circles next to each filter on the right-hand side of the screen to hide or unhide filters
Click Done to save your settings
3. See all posts you’ve liked
Take a walk down memory lane with a review of all your past photo likes. (So. Many. Puppos.)
How to do it:
Go to your profile
Open the hamburger menu in the top right corner
Tap Settings
Tap Account
Tap Posts You’ve Liked
4. Clear your search history
Make sure no one ever finds out that you’ve been hunting for photos of “Mr Clean shirt off” by wiping your Instagram search history squeaky clean.
How to do it:
Go to your profile
Open the hamburger menu in the top right corner
Tap Settings
Tap Security
Scroll to the bottom, then tap Clear Search History or Search History
5. Set up notifications for other accounts
Add alerts for your favourite accounts and never miss a new post from your favourite Japanese mascot fan page again.
How to do it:
Visit the the profile page of the account you’d like to get notifications for
Tap the Following button
Select Notifications
Toggle the content you want to receive notifications about: Posts, Stories, IGTV or Live Videos
6. Create shortcuts for common responses
iOS users can create auto-complete comments to respond to common questions, and save precious seconds. Time is money, people!
How to do it:
On your Instagram profile, tap the hamburger menu and then Settings.
Tap Creator and then Quick Replies.
Tap New Quick Reply
Choose a few words or a phrase to act as a Shortcut (e.g., OpeningHours).
In the Message section, type the generic response you would like to create (e.g., “Hi! We’re only open for business during the Full Moon!”.).
Tap Save
Anytime you want to use that specific comment, type out your shortcut and your phone will automatically populate the full phrase.
7. Bookmark your favourite posts
Think of “Collections” as your digital scrapbooks: save your favourite posts here.
How to do it:
Go to a post you’d like to save
Tap the bookmark icon underneath the post you want to save
It’ll automatically be added to a generic collection, but if you’d like to send it to a specific one, choose Save Collection; here you can select an existing collection or tap the + icon to create and name a new one
To see your saved posts and collections, visit your profile and tap the hamburger menu. Then tap Saved
8. Remove old posts (without deleting them forever)
Like the Instagram equivalent of the Disney vault, you can hide old posts out of sight with the “Archive” function.
How to do it:
Tap … at the top of the post you want to remove
Select Archive
To review all archived posts, go to your profile and tap the hamburger icon in the top right corner
Tap Archive
At the top of the screen click Archive to view either Posts or Stories
If you want to restore content to your public profile, simply tap Show on Profile at any time and it’ll show up in its original spot
9. Limit your screen time
Just because you can scroll forever doesn’t mean you should. Save yourself from yourself with Instagram’s built-in daily timer.
How to do it:
Go to your profile and tap the hamburger menu
Tap Your Activity > Set Daily Reminder
Choose an amount of time and tap Set Reminder
Instagram hacks for photo and video sharing
10. Create line breaks in your caption
Take control over the pacing of your caption with this trick to create line breaks.
How to do it:
Edit your photo and proceed to the caption screen
Write your caption
To access the Return key, tap the 123 key on your device’s keyboard
Use Return to add breaks to your caption
Note: While the breaks will start a new line, they won’t create the white space that you would see between two paragraphs. To create a paragraph break, write out your photo caption in your phone’s notes app and copy it over to Instagram. Wanna break up lines even further? Try using bullet points, dashes, or other punctuations.
Got a bunch of pics of your cat dressed as David Bowie on your desktop? Skip the extra step of sending them to your phone before you show them to the world (hello? We’re waiting!).
Depending on your operating system, there are a few different tools you can use to post to Instagram from your computer. One of them, of course, is Hootsuite. Our Composer even has editing and resizing functionality, making the publishing process smooth as butter.
How to do it:
Watch the video above!
13. Choose a cover photo for your video
Your hair looked particularly cute 10 seconds into your video, and you want the world to know. Here’s how to handpick the still that kicks off your vid.
How to do it:
Use a graphic design tool like Canva to create an intro image, and then place at the beginning or end of your video with editing software
Tap the + button on the bottom of your screen to select a video from your Library, or create one in the moment
Next, tap Cover
Select the intro image from the selection of stills
14. Hide comments from your feed
A picture is worth a thousand words—so do you really need other people adding to the conversation? Here’s how to keep the comment section quiet.
How to do it:
From your profile, select the hamburger menu from the top right and tap Settings
Tap Privacy
Tap Comments
Set Manual Filters for specific words or phrases, or select Hide Offensive Comments to auto-filter for common rude language
While you can’t disable comments across your profile, you can disable comments on a specific post by selecting Advanced Settings>Turn Off Commenting while you’re posting.
Instagram Story hacks
15. Record video hands-free
Hands-free mode is like a much more low maintenance Instagram Boyfriend. Reliable. Takes instruction well. Loyal. Loving.
How to do it:
Swipe right from your home screen to open the Instagram Stories camera
Swipe through the options at the side of the screen—normal, Boomerang, etc.—and stop at the Hands-Free recording option
Tap the record button at the bottom of the screen to begin recording
To stop recording, either let the maximum time run out or tap the capture button again
16. Hide a story from specific users
For when everyone needs to see the hilarious prank you pulled on Daryl in accounting—except your boss.
How to do it:
Method 1
Go to your profile and tap the hamburger menu.
Tap Settings.
Tap Privacy> Story
Tap Hide Story From
Select the people you’d like to hide your story from, then tap Done (iOS) or the checkmark symbol (Android).
To unhide your story from someone, tap the blue checkmark to unselect them.
Method 2
You can also choose people to hide your story from as you’re looking at who’s seen your story.
Tap the three dots to the right of their name and select Hide Story From [Username].
Note: Hiding your story from someone is different from blocking them, and doesn’t prevent them from seeing your profile and posts.
17. Use your own fonts on stories
Why Instagram won’t allow you to just use Jokerman font natively, we may never know. But where there’s a wackily designed ’90s serif, there’s a way.
How to do it:
Open a fonts tool. There are plenty of free options via your web browser, like igfonts.io: be wary of third-party font keyboard apps that can monitor everything you ty, though!
Type your message into your font tool of choice
Select the font you want
Copy the text and paste it into your story (though this works for profile bios and post captions, too)
18. Change the cover of your story highlights
Highlight your highlights with a fresh first image.
How to do it:
Tap your highlight, then tap Edit Highlight
Tap Edit Cover
Select your photo from your camera roll
19. Write with all the colors of the rainbow
Change the hues of individual letters, or even harness the magic of the rainbow with this sneaky trick to color your world.
How to do it:
Tap the camera icon on the top left to create a new Story
Select Create
Type your message, then select the portion of the text you’d like to change color
Hold your left finger or thumb on the end cursor
Hold your right finger or thumb on the color you want to end on
Now slide both fingers to the right at the same time: your left hand will be unhighlighting the letters one at a time, while your right hand is changing the color selection for each
20. Add extra photos to a Story
For when one snapshot of your DIY macrame dog bikini per post isn’t enough.
How to do it:
Open a photo in your photo roll and tap the Export button
Tap Copy
Open Instagram Stories and double tap the screen to select the Paste option
Even if your friends’ feeds are full of photos of your Margarita Monday exploits, the world never has to know.
How to do it:
Go to your profile
Tap the person in a box icon beneath your bio to go to the Photos of You tab
Tap the photo you want to remove from your profile
Tap the three dots icon in the upper right-hand corner and select TagOptions
Select Remove Me From Post or Hide from My Profile
Note: You can also prevent tagged photos from appearing on your profile in the first place. Just go to the Photos of You tab and select any photo. Then, select Edit on the top right. Here, you can toggle Manually Approve Tags.
22. Add line breaks to bio
Break up that block of text and share your info in a visually appealing way.
How to do it:
Open up a notes app and write out your bio as you’d like it to appear—line breaks included
Select all the text and choose Copy
Open the Instagram app
Tap your profile image icon to visit your profile
Tap the Edit Profile button
Paste the text from your notes app into the bio field
Tap Done to save your changes
23. Get your bio in more search results
Slip a keyword for your business into the name field of your bio, and you’ll be more likely to pop up in search results for that industry.
How to do it:
Tap on Edit Profile on the top right of your Instagram profile
In the Name section, change the text to include your keywords
Tap Done on the top right corner of your screen
24. Add special characters and use special fonts for your profile
Jazzing up your profile with fun fonts or the perfect wingding is as easy as a copy-and-paste. (One note: use special characters sparingly to accommodate accessibility! Not every accessible reading tool will be able to interpret them correctly.)
How to do it:
Open a Word or Google doc.
Start typing your bio. To place a special character, tap Insert, then Advanced Symbol.
Add the icons where you would like them in your bio.
Open your Instagram profile in a web browser and tap Edit Profile.
Copy and paste your bio from the Word or Google doc to your Instagram bio and tap Done when you’re finished.
25. Switch to a business profile
Officially declaring yourself as a business on Instagram gives you some serious advantages, like running ads and getting insights. If you’re a brand, what are you waiting for?
How to do it:
Go to your profile and tap the hamburger menu
Tap Settings
Tap Account
Tap Switch to Business Account
We recommend that you connect your business account to a Facebook Page that is associated with your business. This will make it easier to use all of the features available for businesses. At this time, only one Facebook Page can be connected to your business account
Add details such as your business or accounts’s category and contact information
26. Find the top (and most relevant) hashtags to use
If you want to be discovered, including hashtags in your post is key. Here’s how to figure out which ones are the best fit for getting your content its Star is Born moment.
How to do it:
Select the magnifying glass icon to visit the Explore tab
Type in a keyword and tap the Tags column
Choose a hashtag from the list
This will take you to a page of posts bearing that hashtag
Above the “Top” and “Recent” portions of the page, there appears a small bar labeled “Related.” Next to this, Instagram will display a list of relevant hashtags that you can swipe through for inspiration (and further research)
27. Follow your favorite hashtags
Get inspiration in your feed and never miss the latest #NailArt masterpieces (are those… Tom and Jerry nails?).
How to do it:
Select the magnifying glass icon to visit the Explore tab
Type in the hashtag you want to follow
On the hashtag page click the Follow button
28. Hide hashtags on posts and in stories
Yes, Hashtags get you discovered. But they can also be visual clutter. (Or just look a little… thirsty.) Here’s how to reap the benefits without cramping your style.
Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a lifestyle photographer used to grow from 0 to 600,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.
From the home screen, tap the camera icon at the top left of the screen. Or swipe right to open the camera. Or open Instagram Direct by tapping the paper airplane icon at the top right of the screen, then tapping the camera icon in the top left
Shoot a photo, video, or Boomerang
Edit it as desired
Tap the > icon at the bottom right of the screen
Choose your recipient OR tap the + sign to create a new group chat
Tap Send at the bottom of the screen
Note: If you select multiple recipients without creating a group, each user will be sent the same message separately.
31. Edit a friend’s pics
How do you show a friend you care? You put weird emojis on their photos. Here’s how to edit a pal’s pic.
How to do it:
When viewing a photo message from a friend, tap the camera icon at the bottom and capture a reply
Your reply includes a sticker of what you’re replying to
Move and resize it, and add your own twist with stickers, text and drawings
Make sure to send with the setting Allow Replay at the bottom so your friend can remix your pic
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