How to Leave Close Friends on Instagram
Written by Emilija - Reviewed by Tijana Social Media / Instagram
While deserving a place on someone’s list of close friends on Instagram can be a positive experience for some, for others might not be as much.
Close friends on Instagram is a feature that allows users to hand-pick followers who can see their Instagram stories. When users see a story with a green circle around it, it means that the user who posted the story has chosen them to be their close friends on Instagram.
The feature is handy for users who want to share a story only with a specific group of people. However, some users don’t want to be part of someone’s list of close friends for various reasons.
Sadly, Instagram doesn’t offer a feature that allows users to remove themselves from someone’s Instagram close friends list.
The easiest solution would be to mute the user. Muting someone on Instagram means you won’t see their stories or posts on your feed without unfollowing them or blocking them.
This will also make the stories they share with the people on the close friends list not visible to you.
How to mute someone on Instagram
As we mentioned, you can’t remove yourself from a close friends list on Instagram, but you can mute that user and stop seeing their stories and posts altogether.
- Log in to your Instagram account.
- Tap their username from their Feed or story post, or tap explore and search their username to go to their profile.
- Tap Following below their profile info.
- Tap Mute.
- Tap the switch off next to Posts or Stories.
Alternatively, users can unfollow the person, block them, or ask to remove them from the list of close friends.
How to block someone on Instagram
Blocking would be the most restrictive action someone can take, since this way, users won’t be able to view or message your profile besides not being able to put you on their close friend’s list.
- Open your Instagram app.
- Navigate to the profile you want to block.
- Tap on the three dots in the upper right corner.
- Tap on ‘Block’.
Unfollow the person and remove them from your Followers list
Another way of removing yourself from someone’s close friend's list would be to unfollow the person and remove them from your followers.
Unfollow Instagram users:
- Log in to your Instagram account.
- Tap their username from their Feed or story post, or tap explore and search their username to go to their profile.
- Tap Following below their profile info.
- Tap Unfollow.
Remove people from your Followers list
- Go to your Instagram profile.
- Tap on your Followers.
- Find the person you want to remove and tap on ‘Remove’.
Ask the person to remove you from their list of close friends
Since Instagram doesn’t offer a native feature that allows users to remove themselves from someone's close friends' list, they can simply ask the person to remove them.
Perhaps it isn't the kindest gesture from your side, but it will hopefully get you removed from the list of close friends.
Wrapping Up
The social media giant added the ‘close friends’ option to allow users to share stories on Instagram with a specific group of people.
Sadly users can’t independently remove themselves from the close friend's list. As for now, we can only use some of the workarounds mentioned above.
