Look, we all use Instagram in situations where we probably shouldn’t. We open the app and scroll through the feed or tap through Stories spontaneously — even when we’re around other people and need to do so silently. That used to not be much of a problem — on the iPhone, just keep your phone’s mute switch flipped down, and Instagram stays silent. Except, for the last week, that hasn’t been the case.
No, it’s not just you: For a week now, Instagram keeps playing sound in Stories, even when your iPhone is otherwise muted. Frustratingly, if you mute your phone while in the Instagram app, it will stop the sound, but the next Story you load or video you scroll past will go right back to blaring out of your speakers. And y’know, a lot of the audio on Instagram isn’t particularly subtle (thanks, TikTok).
But fear not! Pick up your phone, close Instagram, and head to the App Store: Instagram has pushed out a fix for this annoying sound bug.
How to turn off the sound in Instagram Stories and Reels
After several days of having to manually lower the volume on your phone to keep Stories and Reels from playing audio, we finally have a real fix. Meta (Instagram’s parent company) confirmed to Digital Trends this afternoon that the latest version of the Instagram iPhone app includes a fix for this sound bug, saying, “This issue has been resolved with the latest version of Instagram for iOS — please update to the latest version of the app available in the App Store.”
After updating to version 252.0 from the App Store, we can confirm that the mute switch works again! Stories and Reels only play sound if we actually want them to.
Is the bug related to iOS 16? And what about Android?
For now, this bug seems to only have presented itself on the iPhone. Though you may have noticed it recently and thought that it was tied to the latest iPhone update to iOS 16, this bug actually started presenting itself well before the release and is happening on iOS 15 as well. No matter what iOS version you’re running, you’ll need to update your Instagram app to get the fix.
Using Instagram Stories on an Android phone works exactly as it always has: If you have your phone on mute, Stories are silent and audio only plays if you use your volume buttons. No hardware mute switch funny business required.
