How to sneakily delete unwanted Instagram followers without blocking them and making life awkward

Don’t want to hurt your friends’ precious feelings by telling them that their Instagram feed is annoying? Here’s a lovely way out!

Got someone that you don’t really want to have following you? Like, an ex or something, or a stalker, or your racist uncle who keeps commenting really bad things under all your posts? Well, sometimes a block just isn’t the right way forward – you see, when someone’s blocked, they know about it. This makes family BBQs extremely awkward.

So what Instagram are testing is a way to sneakily drop someone off your follower list without them knowing. Of course, they’ll still be able to see your profile if they search for it and you’ve set it public, but fingers crossed, they’ll simply not notice and your comments section will return to its wholesome origins.

Instagram have only rolled this out to a few select users, but we expect that it’s a feature that will at some point in the near future be available to everyone.

How to check if you can delete Instagram followers?

Go to Followers, then tap the three dots at the side of a nuisance user’s handle, and if “Remove” drops down, then you can banish that ne’er-do-well to the trash-heap. If your account is set to public, then they will simply drop off your follower list (although they’ll be able to re-follow).

Can deleted Instagram followers still re-follow me if my Instagram profile private?

We’re afraid so, although they will have to send you another follow request, which you’d also need to accept. If you don’t accept, the person that you unfollowed won’t be able to see any of your profile – as long as it has been set to private after you deleted them.

What if I want to unfollow someone on Instagram without them knowing?

Good question. On the other side of the coin if you’re worried about the people flooding your feed rather than losing your own followers, Instagram introduced a ‘mute’ feature back in May – of which some people are still unaware. Basically, if someone you follow is driving you crazy with the pictures and posts then, instead of unfollowing them and causing potential offence, you can simply ‘mute’ them from your feed, meaning you won’t see any of their gurning, smoothie-grasping workout posts five times every day. It’s bliss.

The ‘mute follower’ feature is available everywhere, but as it stands, the ‘remove follower’ feature is only being tested on Android phones so far, so if you’re one of those cool dudes, then get checking, and get removing! Sorry, unc!