Social media can be a great way of connecting with friends and family and sharing your lives with them on the world wide web.
Sadly, due to the nature of these sites, you do also open yourselves up to other people peering in on what you share as well. That is, of course, unless you amend your privacy and security settings on each platform.
Instagram is no different in this regard and is actually one of the most targeted platforms by trolls. Therefore, it is very important that you get your privacy and security settings sorted.
In this article, we are going to be looking at whether you can hide your stories on Instagram from certain users while also running you through some other Instagram privacy tips. Let’s get started.
How to hide stories on Instagram – is it possible?
The good news is that you can hide your stories from any users you like on Instagram.
When doing this, you can either take a blanket approach and make sure only people who follow you can view your Instagram stories or you can take a more granular approach and select which users you want to hide your story from.
To implement either method you are going to need to use the mobile phone app.
To take a blanket approach, and only allow people who follow you on Instagram to view your stories, then you are going to need to make your Instagram account locked.
This will not only have an impact on your story viewers but it will also restrict all Instagram interactions to people who follow you. In addition, locked/private account holders have the power to either approve or reject people who want to follow them.
To change your Instagram account to locked/private, please follow these steps:
- Log on to your Instagram account via the mobile phone app.
- Select your account profile on the bottom right-hand side of the screen.
- From here, select the three-lined icon on the top right hand side of the screen.
- From the drop down menu, select settings, followed by ‘privacy’.
- Underneath the ‘account privacy’ subheading, make sure that the toggle next to ‘private account’ is switched on.
- Simply click away from this page, and the change to your account will have been made.
- For peace of mind, navigate back to your profile page and you should see a closed padlock to the left of your username at the top of the scene.
Hiding stories on a more granular level
If you are happy enough with having a public/unlocked account but just want to hide your story from one or two users then Instagram has you covered.
The best way to do this is to use the functionality built into their algorithm which allows you to pick out which users you wish to hide your story from. In order to do this, please follow these instructions:
- Log in to your Instagram account via the mobile phone app.
- Select your account icon on the bottom right-hand side of the home page.
- Select the three lined icon on the top right hand side of you account profile and select ‘settings’.
- Select ‘privacy’, followed by ‘story’.
- Select ‘hide story from’.
- Either scroll through your list of followers or search their names directly into the search bar and then select which ones you would like to hide your stories from.
- Select ‘done’ on the top right hand to confirm your change.



When you do this, these changes will be implemented indefinitely for all future stories.
If you are only wanting to hide a certain story from someone as one-off then you will have to go back and untick them from the list once that specific story has expired. If you don’t, they’ll never be able to see your Instagram stories again.
How to hide your story from someone who doesn’t follow you
As you can see, by using the method above you will only be able to hide your Instagram stories from people who follow you.
This might not be any good to you if you have a stalker who doesn’t follow you. If you want to hide your story from any non-followers then you are going to have to block them on the platform. To do this, follow these instructions:
- Log into Instagram via the mobile phone app.
- Use the search icon on the bottom menu bar to bring up the search bar.
- In the search bar type in the name of the person you want to block and select their profile.
- Once you’re on their profile, select the three-dotted icon on the top right hand side of their profile and select ‘block’.
- From the subsequent pop up, decide whether you want to block them or block and report.
If you block someone on Instagram then not only will they no longer be able to watch your stories, but they also won’t be able to view your posts, access your profile or send you direct messages.
Conclusion
To conclude, hiding your stories from other users on Instagram is an easy enough task regardless of whether you are looking to hide them from specific users or anyone who doesn’t follow you. You don’t have to delete your Instagram posts to stop others from seeing them.
We hope that by following our instructions above you will be able to implement the method most suited to your needs. In some cases though, the best way to hide Instagram stories from randoms is to block when in the app.