Instagram provides reliable protection of personal information, so at any time you can restrict access of outsiders to your page using the standard tools of the service. After that, all publications in the news feed – photos and videos, comments and short stories – can only be seen by trusted and approved followers. Such measures help protect against spam, advertising, and unwanted people. Let’s talk about the difference between a public page and a restricted one, and how to make a private profile on Instagram in 2019.
What is the difference between a private and public Instagram profile?
By default, all posts on a personal page are publicly accessible and anyone can view, comment, or like them. Sometimes there is a need to hide photos from a few outsiders or all visitors at once. For such purposes, a special functional feature is implemented on the platform, which allows you to turn a public profile into a private one.
As a result of the actions taken, all publications – photos and videos – can only be viewed by permanent subscribers. Such measures are not desirable for users who are interested in promoting their account and their own commercial activities, as the potential audience will not see your news.
Let’s consider the main features and differences of a private account from a public one:
1. Access to the page, photos, videos, personal chat, and stories on Instagram is only available to permanent subscribers.
2. To subscribe to page updates, users must send a friend request, and only after receiving approval from the owner of the confidential profile can they view their posts.
3. When searching by hashtag, your content will not be identified in public access.
You can block access to your account using a personal computer or mobile device with any Android or iOS operating system.
How to close a public account on Instagram
To block public access to your personal page, perform a few clicks, as a result of which all publications will be hidden from unwanted individuals. It should be noted that by default, after registering on a social network, the profile has a public status. After completing the procedure, only subscribers who subscribed to you before the introduction of restrictive measures will be able to see the content. Let’s consider the procedure for standard pages and business accounts in detail.
Personal blog
The process of closing a profile looks similar for both computers and smartphones based on Android or iOS. The differences lie only in the location of the main editing tools and the design of the service’s interface. Let’s take a look at how to close a personal blog on Instagram on your phone:
1. Launch the official client of the social network on your smartphone.
2. Enter your login and password for user identification.
3. Click on the account thumbnail on the bottom panel of the screen to go to your personal account.
4. Click on the icon in the form of three lines at the top of the display, next to the account avatar.
5. Click on the settings tab in the form of a gear.
6. Select the privacy and security information item.
7. Move the restriction indicator to the active position.
8. Save the settings.
From this moment on, visitors who are not your subscribers will not be able to see your personal information and publications.
Business account
It should be noted that the function of closing an account is not available for owners of business accounts and commercial pages. You will not be able to restrict access to your information by third parties. There is only one way to solve this problem – switch the profile type, for which:
- Turn on the mobile app on your smartphone.
- Go to your personal page by clicking on the button in the form of an account thumbnail.
- Go to the system settings section. To do this, hover over the icon in the form of three horizontal lines and click on the parameters tab.
- Click on the Account item.
- A list of parameters will be displayed on the screen. At the very bottom, find the button to switch the commercial profile to standard.
- In the settings section, select the security and privacy tab.
- Move the checkbox to the enabled state.
If you switch your account back to the business profile, all changes will be canceled and your page will be open to everyone.
How to add subscribers to a private profile
After activating limited access to your news, visitors will not be able to simply subscribe to updates. The process will look like this:
1. If you like a particular user on a social network and decide to become their friend, go to their page.
2. All posts will be blocked. Click on the “Subscribe” button.
3. After that, the request will be automatically sent to the account owner.
4. They will receive a notification in their private chat from you. They have two options – to approve or reject the request.
Only after receiving the owner’s consent can the visitor become a subscriber and gain access to the content.
Is it possible to view a private Instagram account?
If you want to access a private account and view photos or videos, there is only one way to do it – submit a request to follow and receive personal approval from the owner. If you are denied, it may be worth creating fake pages and trying to send the request again.
In the world of digital technology, you can find many services and programs for hacking or viewing private profiles. It should be noted that using such utilities is not recommended, as you risk falling into the hands of scammers and losing your account.
From the article, you learned how to make a private profile on Instagram and hide posts from others. Only standard account types have access to this feature, commercial pages cannot restrict access to their publications. If you want to promote yourself on the service and increase your popularity, it is not recommended to resort to such measures, as visitors will not be able to see your content.