Living in the public eye is a defining aspect of social media; even if you’re not an actor or musician, your life might be on display for the rest for the world every time you post a picture on Instagram. Occasionally, there might be people you don’t want seeing your posts. Maybe you’ve got an ex-lover keeping tabs on you. Maybe you don’t want your grandparents to see those photos of you doing Jägerbombs. Maybe you’re late with the rent, and don’t want your roommates to see that avocado toast you had for breakfast. Whatever your reasons, you may have needed to block someone at some point.
But what if you decide to let them back into you (online) life? Fortunately, unblocking someone on Instagram is easy — read on for a step-by-step how-to. Our ultimate guide to using Instagram is chock-full of other useful tips, so you may want to check that out, too.
On mobile
If you’re using the Instagram app on your phone, tap the humanoid icon in the bottom right to open your profile.
Next, tap the menu icon in the upper right (the three dots) to bring up the options menu.
Scroll down to the Account settings and tap Blocked Users.
Here, you will see every user that you have blocked. Click on them to go to their profile. Then, simply tap Unblock.
Instagram will ask if you’re sure; tap Yes, I’m sure.
On desktop
Although most us likely have access to our phones at all times, you can also unblock people from a computer. Instagram’s web portal isn’t quite as fleshed out as its mobile app, but it still lets you control most of the aspects of managing your account.
First, navigate to the Instagram website and log in to your account. The website doesn’t give you the same options menu that you have in the mobile app, so you can’t simply pull up a list of blocked users. Instead, you need to type the name of the person you want to unblock into the search bar.
Once you pull up their profile, click the menu icon (three dots) next to their username and select Unblock this user.
Note: Just because you’ve unblocked someone, doesn’t mean you’re necessarily friends again. When you block someone, it removes them from your followers, and you from theirs. Furthermore, according to Instagram, people you unblock will not receive a notification about it. As such, you will need to follow them again if you want to see their posts back in your feed, and you may have to let them know they can follow you to see your posts once again. Hopefully, they won’t ask any awkward questions about why you blocked them in the first place, but if they do, well, you can always just block them again.
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