Customize Instagram: hide the feed, Explore and suggestions
Instagram is more adjustable than you'd think: you can see only the accounts you follow, snooze suggestions, silence notifications at night. But some things, like the feed, Explore or the Reels tab, only disappear with an outside tool. The full rundown.
What you can adjust in Instagram
See only the accounts you follow
Tap the Instagram logo at the top of the home screen: the menu offers Following, posts from the accounts you follow in chronological order, and Favorites, a short list of accounts you pick. It's the setting that changes the experience the most, but Instagram goes back to the usual feed every time you open it.
Snooze suggestions
On a suggested post, tap the cross: Instagram offers to snooze suggested posts in your feed for 30 days. You have to start again every month. The same menu lets you stop seeing posts from an account, or posts containing certain words.
Calm the notifications
In the notification settings, you can pause everything for a few hours, or turn on quiet mode, which silences notifications and lets people who message you know. Turning off notifications genuinely reduces inattention (Kushlev et al., 2016).
Set a time limit
The section about time spent lets you set a daily limit. Instagram tells you when you reach it, but you can carry on with one tap.
What Instagram doesn't allow
- Removing the Reels tab.
- Removing Explore, or the posts it suggests.
- Hiding the home feed so you only use Instagram for messages and stories.
- Keeping the “Following” feed as the default.
Going further: a tool
On a computer and on iPhone, a browser extension can hide these elements on Instagram's website: the method is in Remove Reels from Instagram. On Android, Instagram custom, in Livetime, offers each of these settings as a checkbox:
| What you want to hide | In Instagram | Instagram custom (Livetime) |
|---|---|---|
| The Reels button | Impossible | Yes |
| Suggested posts | 30 days, to renew | Yes, permanently |
| The home feed | Impossible | Yes |
| Posts on Explore | Impossible | Yes |
| Colors | Impossible | Black and white |
Frequently asked questions
Can you keep the “Following” feed as the default?
No: Instagram goes back to the usual feed every time you open it. You have to go through the logo each time, or use a tool that hides the feed.
Can you use Instagram only for messages?
Not in the official app. With Instagram custom in Livetime, you can hide the feed, Reels and Explore, and keep messages and stories.
Written by Emile Clement, a student and the creator of Livetime, after two years of testing almost every screen-time solution out there.
