How to Mute and Unmute Someone on Instagram?

Instagram can be distracting these days with tons of messages and unwanted notifications. That’s where the mute feature of Instagram comes in as a savior. Using this feature of Instagram, you can mute stories and posts of people or even celebrities. Not just that, you can also mute messages (DMs) and call notifications from the people you do want to talk to on Instagram. And it is very easy to Mute and Unmute someone on Instagram.

So if you don’t want to see the post or stories of some Instagram users that you follow or don’t want them to call you out of the blue, you can mute them. The mute option helps you filter out what you want to see and what you don’t. In simple words, if you don’t want to block a user, mute their activities. This way, none of their activities will pop up on your feed; over that, the muted person wouldn’t know if you have muted them.

With that said, now let’s see how to mute and unmute someone on Instagram!

How to mute someone on Instagram?

Muting someone on Instagram is the best way of filtering their content on your feed. The mute feature helps you control your Instagram feed and prioritize what you want to see. The user posts are seen on the feed while the stories appear on the top of the feed with the user’s profile picture.
Muting on Instagram is not only easy but better than blocking the person.

Here are the steps you can follow to mute both posts and stories from users on Instagram.

1. First, search for the user you want to mute by entering their user handle (or name) in the search bar and then head over to their Instagram profile.
2. Now tap on the “Following” button right below the user’s profile. Another menu will pop up, with more options.
3. From that menu, tap on the “Mute” option.
4. Here, you’ll see toggles to mute posts and stories. You can mute either of them or both from that Instagram user by switching the toggles on.

The mute option is really useful as it helps keep control of what you want to see and whom you want to see on your feed. Unless you want to mute both posts and stories, you can choose to mute just the stories.

Mute someone’s stories on Instagram!

Muting stories allows you to exclude people you don’t want to pop up on the stories section of the app. Instagram will put such stories at the end of all the stories on your feed. Hence, you will have to scroll horizontally to the end or open the muted person’s profile if you wish to see their stories again.

Muting someone’s stories is easy. All you need to do is follow these simple steps:

1. Open your Instagram, and look for the person whose stories you would want to mute. The stories section lies on the top of your Instagram feed with users’ profile pictures.
2. Long-press on the story of the user you want to mute.
3. You’ll now see two options, “View Profile” and “Mute.” Tap on “Mute” to mute stories from the person, and you are good to go.

You will no longer see the stories from the muted person highlighted on the top of your feed. However, you can still watch them by visiting the said person’s profile.

Using the stories muting feature, you can filter out the stories from specific user accounts without compromising what they post on their feed. You will still see their post on your Instagram feed unless you have muted them as well.

Mute Instagram DM and call notifications!

The mute option on Instagram is not only limited to posts and stories. You can also mute Call notifications, and DMs from other Instagram users. Muting DMs and calls can come in very handy if you run a public/business account, where you are supposed to get frequent DMs. Or in general, if you are a part of various Instagram groups and tired of all those irrelevant group notifications, you can mute them.

By muting Instagram DMs and Call notifications, you can significantly reduce the distraction coming from all those unwanted notifications. Here is how to mute Instagram DMs and Call notifications:

1. Open the Instagram app and head over to your DMs. You can find the DM icon on the top right of the feeds page.
2. Now long-press on the chat you want to mute and select “Mute messages” to mute that user account. A mute icon will appear beside the muted user’s DM, and you will no longer get notified of any message from them.
3. In a similar way, you can also mute call notifications from an Instagram user. Simply, long-press on the user’s DM and then tap on the “Mute call notification” option to mute all call notifications from that user.

And that’s how you mute Call notifications and DMs on Instagram. Instagram will no longer send you notifications of DMs (or call) from the muted user. But you can still interact with them, by opening their chat/DM from the app.

Muting an Instagram user/group is the best option if you don’t want to unfollow or block them. But you can always reverse this and unmute the muted user back. Now, this brings us to the question, “How to unmute someone on Instagram?”

How to unmute someone on Instagram?

Unmuting someone on the Instagram platform is as same as muting the user. You can mute or unmute the person whenever you want to have control over your feed. The steps to unmute someone are the same for both iPhone and Android, so here to do it:

1. Open the Instagram app on your smartphone and search for the profile that you have muted.
2. While you are on their profile, tap on the “Following” button and then choose the “Mute” option from the menu.
3. Now you will see toggles to unmute Posts and Stories. The Blue color of the toggle indicates muted, while the Grey color means unmute. To unmute them, tap on the toggle once, and you are done unmuting someone on Instagram.

These steps will help you on unmuting users so you can see their posts as well as stories back on your Instagram feed. 

Unmute Instagram stories!

Most certainly, you can follow the above-mentioned steps to unmute someone’s stories on Instagram. But there is another way to unmute muted stories to make them visible again on your feed.

1. Open Instagram and scroll to the last of the Stories section.
2. Here you’ll see all your muted stories. Long-press on the one that you want to unmute.
3. A menu will appear; from there, tap on “Unmute story” to unmute stories from that user.

After this whenever they upload a new story, you’ll see that story normally along with stories from other Instagram accounts you follow.

Unmute Instagram DMs and Call notification!

Muting a chat restricts their message and call notifications; it will silently appear in your inbox. You can still reply to the messages and calls from your inbox, but you will not get notified. Muting DMs and call notifications cuts the distraction, though if you want to unmute DMs and call notifications, the steps are as follows.

1. Open the Instagram app and head over to your DMs. You can find the DM icon on the top right of the feeds page.
2. Now look for the chat that you want to unmute. Unmuted chats will have a mute icon, making them easily recognizable.
3. Long-press on the chat that you want to unmute, and then tap on “Unmute messages” from the option to unmute that user’s DMs. You’ll now get notified every time that person sends you a message on Instagram. Likewise, for unmuting call notifications, tap on “Unmute call notifications” right below the “Unmute messages” option.

While it is easy to recognize if you have muted someone’s DM on Instagram, you really can’t identify if you have muted someone’s call notifications. So make sure you remember the person’s name before muting their call notifications.

How to see your Instagram muted list?

Keeping track of people you’ve muted on Instagram isn’t easy. Sometimes you might forget whom you muted a long time ago and want to unmute them. Or you might have muted someone by mistake. Whatever the case is, you’ll have to unmute them to see their content again.

Thankfully, Instagram has a muted list option, which shows the name of every user/account that you have muted.

Here is how to access your Instagram account’s muted list.

1. Open the Instagram app on your phone, and head over to the Profile tab.
2. On the Profile tab, you will see a hamburger menu on the top right. Tap on it and then tap on Settings.
3. Under Settings, go to Privacy.
4. Inside Privacy, scroll down and look for “Muted accounts.”

Here you will see every Instagram account you have muted so far. From there, look for the account(s) that you want to unmute and unmute by visiting their Instagram profile. (follow the steps mentioned above)

However, remember that this muted list will only show accounts that you have muted for their stories and posts. Accounts muted for DMs and call notifications will not appear in this list.

Wrapping up: How to mute and unmute someone on Instagram?

That’s our guide on how to mute or unmute someone on Instagram so that you can easily control what you want to see when you open Instagram. The guide helps you understand one of the key features of Instagram for personalizing your feed. If Instagram is too distracting, using the Mute features is the best option.

The guide also explains the different Mute and Unmute options you get on Instagram and how you can access the muted account list on Instagram. Keeping a hand on whom to mute and unmute can help you cut a lot of distractions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)