How to tell if someone restricted you on Instagram


How to tell if someone restricted you on Instagram holding phone

We all like to have some fun sharing pictures and funny videos on Instagram, right? But sometimes we see something strange, one of our friends seems to have stopped posting. What's going on? We can help you figure it out, let's look at how to tell if someone restricted you on Instagram.

Being restricted is not the same as being blocked, as we can still interact with that user. So it might be a bit difficult to understand as opposed to being blocked since in that case we just lose all access to a person’s profile.

But there might be a way to tell if we are just being restricted on Instagram, so read on to find out how to tell if someone restricted you on Instagram so you have all the latest information.

How to tell if someone restricted you on Instagram

Since this new feature was designed by Instagram to limit cyberbullying on their platform, but it's less severe than blocking, it might be difficult to tell when you are being restricted by someone.

There are a few things you can check though and here are they.

Comment on their post

The first thing is commenting on a new post by the user. If you are restricted on that account, the user has to first approve the comment before it is public.

If you have a secondary account on the platform, or a friend that can lend you their phone, you can check right after posting it. If you're not seeing it published, then that means you are being restricted as the user has not approved (or rejected) the comment yet.

Check their Activity Status

One other thing to try is checking out the Activity Status. This is a feature that enables you to see the last time a user was active, so you have to first turn it on in Settings > Privacy > Activity Status.

If you are not able to see the last time a user was online, that might mean you have been restricted. Or perhaps they prefer to appear offline on Instagram and therefore they don't have Activity Status on. So this is not a 100% surefire method.

What happens when someone restricts you on Instagram?

When someone restricts you on Instagram, you won’t be able to see when they are online or if they have read their messages. Also, they won’t receive any notifications for future comments from you.

Furthermore, your new comments on their posts will only be visible to you by default. They have to approve your comments before they can appear under their posts.

How to restrict someone on Instagram

You can restrict someone in several ways, through comments, messages and settings. In comments, just select the one from the user you want to restrict, then select the exclamation mark icon in the top-right and tap on "restrict username".

Through messages, select the message of the person you want to restrict. Go to their name that you can see on top of the chat then select restrict. Alternatively, through settings, open the menu and go to Settings. Then Privacy, Connections, Restricted Accounts, Continue. Then search for the username of the profile you want to restrict.

This new feature on the app is definitely a bit tricky and it can be difficult to tell if someone has restricted you. But if you want to get more out of the app, check out our guides on how to change location and how to view private Instagram profiles.

For more articles like this, take a look at our How To and Apps page.