How to make your Instagram account private

Instagram's own comparison of public and private accounts:

Source: Instagram Help Centre: Differences between public and private accounts on Instagram, checked 15 October 2026

1. Tap your profile picture in the bottom right.
2. Tap Menu in the top right.
3. Below Who can see your content, tap Account privacy.
4. Turn on the toggle next to Private account.
5. Tap Switch to private to confirm.

Source: Instagram Help Centre: Make your Instagram account private, checked 15 October 2026

No. Instagram says business profiles can't be private. To go private, switch back to a personal account first:

1. Tap your profile picture, then Menu (you may also need to tap Settings).
2. Tap Account type and tools, then Account type.
3. Tap Switch account type.
4. Tap Switch to personal account, then Switch to personal to confirm.

• You'll lose access to some Meta business tools, like Meta Business Suite and Meta Ads Manager
• A public personal account keeps access to your dashboard and insights

Sources: Instagram Help Centre: Make your Instagram account private, checked 15 October 2026; Instagram Help Centre: Switch back to a personal Instagram account from an Instagram professional account, checked 15 October 2026

Our advice for a business: stay public, since a private account can't be found in Explore, hashtag or location pages. Use blocking, restricting and comment controls to deal with problem accounts instead.

• Follow requests appear in Activity, where you approve or ignore them
• People who already followed you stay. Remove them from your followers or block them if you don't want them seeing your posts
• Followers can still share your posts in messages unless you change that setting, and only your followers can see them
• Posts you share to other networks may be public there, depending on that network's settings
• Your channel stays searchable and joinable by non-followers, but posts shared to it from a private profile show as unavailable to them

Source: Instagram Help Centre: Differences between public and private accounts on Instagram, checked 15 October 2026

• Accounts for under-18s are private by default
• Teens under 16 need a parent's or guardian's permission to switch to public
• Teens aged 16 and 17 can switch to public without permission, unless they've set up supervision

Source: Instagram Help Centre: Make your Instagram account private, checked 15 October 2026

• You have a business account. Switch back to a personal account first
• You can't find the setting. It's under Account privacy, below Who can see your content
• Old followers can still see your posts. Going private doesn't remove them; remove or block them
• People can still see your name and bio. Profile information stays visible to anyone, even on a private account
• Your posts appear elsewhere. Check where you cross-posted them

Sources: Instagram Help Centre: Make your Instagram account private, checked 15 October 2026; Instagram Help Centre: Differences between public and private accounts on Instagram, checked 15 October 2026

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