How to Hide Your Instagram Following List (Without Hiding Followers)
Following and followers got separated as toggles in 2025. Here’s how to hide just one — and the small overlap most people don’t catch.
Quick answer: yes, you can hide just your following list. The setting was bundled into one toggle for a long time, then split into two in early 2025. Most help articles haven't caught up.
The full followers/following hide is covered in our hide followers piece. This one's about hiding only the following list — and what's still visible after you do.
Where the setting lives
Open Instagram. Profile. Top-right menu. Settings and privacy. Account privacy. Look for Followers and following — inside it you should see two separate toggles since 2025: one for the follower list, one for the following list.
Flip just the following list toggle. Your follower count and follower list stay visible. Your following count gets hidden, and tapping the Following label does nothing.
If you don't see two separate toggles, your Instagram client is on an older release. Update the app. The split exists on iOS, Android, and web as of mid-2026.
What this actually hides
The visible "Following" count next to Posts and Followers disappears. Tapping the Following label opens nothing. Your following list is no longer browseable to anyone visiting your profile.
Important: people you follow still know you follow them. The follow event triggered a notification on their end when it happened. Hiding the list later doesn't undo that.
Your own profile still shows who you follow when you tap your own Following label. The hiding is for other people viewing your account, not for you.
What it doesn’t hide
If someone goes to a public account you follow, your name still appears in their follower list. The "X follows them" connection persists even when your own following list is hidden. Hiding only stops people from starting at your profile and seeing who you follow — it doesn't erase your trail across other accounts.
If someone screenshots your profile before you hide the list, the screenshot doesn't update retroactively. Hiding is forward-only.
For accounts you want to follow truly privately, the only working approach is to use a separate account for that and keep it private. Hiding the following list on your main account is a soft measure.
Why people hide following but not followers
The follower count is social proof — for creators, businesses, and people who use Instagram as a portfolio, the count itself is visible value. Hiding it can hurt outreach and signal weirdness.
The following list is the opposite. It tells viewers who you watch, what your taste cluster is, and (for people who care) clues about your private interests. There's almost no upside to leaving it public for accounts that aren't trying to signal community presence.
For most personal accounts, "hide following, show followers" is the practical privacy default in 2026. We covered the broader privacy stack in our hide followers guide.
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Frequently asked questions
Yes. The hide-following toggle works on public accounts. Your posts stay public; only the following list becomes hidden.