Instagram's new mute button lets you hide annoying accounts
No need to unfollow those friends who post ad nauseam
Follow any Instagram accounts that are just plain... annoying? You know, the ones that post a little too often, usually of the same thing, and are always in your feed every time you scroll through?
Rather than cutting ties by unfollowing these accounts comletely, Instagram is rolling out a mute button, which lets you hide posts from an account for as long as you like. The mute feature had been spotted in testing a few weeks ago.
Now that it's official, we have more details on how it works.
For starters, you'll still be able to see posts on a muted account's profile page, and you'll get alerts when you've been @'d in a post or comment related to the account.
The muted account won't know you've banished their posts from your feed, either, which is fairly standard practice across social networks.
If you're itching to get muting, start by tapping the '...' on a post. You'll see a 'Mute' option, and then you can drill down to either 'Mute Posts,' 'Mute Story,' or both.
You can also mute both posts and stories by pressing and holding down on a Story.
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To unmute an account, head back to their profile page and select 'Unmute posts,' or tap the three dots again and make your selection from there.
The new mute button is part of an effort by Facebook-owned Instagram to give you more control over your feed. It's a feature many will likely welcome as it gives more flexibility to who you follow and how.
Another feature spotted by TechCrunch that's in testing is a "you're all caught up" notification, an alert users will see when they've laid their eyes on every new post in the past 48 hour period.
Insta confirmed it's testing the feature, so we'll keep an eye on our feeds for when it becomes official.
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Michelle was previously a news editor at TechRadar, leading consumer tech news and reviews. Michelle is now a Content Strategist at Facebook. A versatile, highly effective content writer and skilled editor with a keen eye for detail, Michelle is a collaborative problem solver and covered everything from smartwatches and microprocessors to VR and self-driving cars.