Turn off Instagram Reels on Android
On Android, you have two advantages over the iPhone: you can change your home screen, and use a browser that accepts extensions. Here are three ways to stop seeing Reels, from the simplest to the most hands-on.
Method 1: Instagram custom, in Livetime
Livetime replaces your phone's home screen and opens Instagram in a lighter view. It's the simplest method, because it needs neither a browser nor a hidden setting.
- Install Livetime from Google Play and choose it as your home screen.
- Turn on Instagram custom, then choose what to hide: the Reels button, suggested posts, the home feed, the posts on the Explore page.
- If you want to go further, switch Instagram to black and white, and set a time before you go in: when it's up, the app closes.
An honest caveat: messaging in Instagram custom can't do everything yet. You can read and send messages and photos from your gallery, but not a photo taken on the spot from inside the app. If you need that, Livetime suggests keeping the real Instagram app but hiding it, or using Beeper, which brings your messaging apps together in one place.
Method 2: Firefox and an extension
Firefox for Android is one of the few mobile browsers that accept extensions. Some of them hide Reels on Instagram's website.
- Install Firefox from Google Play.
- In Firefox's menu, open add-ons and install an Instagram extension, such as IGPlus, which hides Reels and Explore.
- Go to instagram.com and sign in.
- In Firefox's menu, add the page to your home screen: Instagram will open like an app, without Reels.
- Uninstall the Instagram app, or you'll go back to it on reflex.
The limit: Instagram's website does fewer things than the app, especially when it comes to posting video stories.
Method 3: Instagram's settings
They don't remove anything, but they reduce what you see. Switch to the “Following” feed by tapping the Instagram logo, snooze suggested posts for 30 days from the cross on a suggestion, and answer “Not interested” to the Reels that hook you. All the details are in Customize Instagram.
What doesn't work
- Uninstalling Instagram for good: people almost always reinstall it the same evening.
- Modified Instagram apps, downloaded outside Google Play: they break Instagram's terms, your account can be suspended, and you give them your password.
- Android's timers on their own: they come off in two taps, at exactly the moment you'd want them to hold.
Frequently asked questions
Can you remove the Reels tab from the official app on Android?
No, not without a modified app, which we advise against. The safest solution is to use Instagram in another view: Instagram custom in Livetime, or Instagram's website in Firefox with an extension.
Can my friends see that I don't use Reels?
No. These methods only change what's displayed on your phone. Your account, your followers and your messages don't change.
Written by Emile Clement, a student and the creator of Livetime, after two years of testing almost every screen-time solution out there.
