How to Hide Likes on Instagram: Your Posts, Everyone Else's, and Who Still Sees the Count

Instagram has two separate switches: one hides the like count on your posts from other people, the other hides counts on everyone's posts from you. Neither hides anything from the post's owner.

Updated September 2026

How can you hide your likes on Instagram posts?

For a post you're about to share:

• Create the post or Reel as usual and go to the final screen, where you write the caption.
• Tap Advanced settings, sometimes shown as More options.
• Switch on the option to hide like and view counts on this post.
• Go back and share. The post goes up with its count hidden from everyone but you.

How to hide likes on a post you already published

Open the post, tap the three-dot menu in the top right and choose Hide like count. To show it again, open the same menu and choose Unhide like count. It works on older posts too, so you can clean up a grid without deleting anything.

How to hide like counts on other people's posts

This hides counts in your own feed only:

• Go to your profile and open the menu, labeled Settings and activity.
• Under the section about what you see, tap Like and share counts.
• Switch on the option to hide like and share counts.
• Scroll your feed. Posts now show Liked by a name and others, instead of a number.

Does this hide my own likes from other people?

No. It only changes what you see. Other people keep seeing your like counts unless you hide them on each post, and they keep seeing other posts' counts unless they turn on the same setting themselves.

Who still sees the count when likes are hidden?

The post's owner, always. When you hide the like count on your own post, you can still see the total and tap through to the list of accounts that liked it. If you have a professional account, the likes also appear in the post's insights as usual.

Everyone else sees Liked by one name and others. The name is usually someone they follow, which is why a hidden post can still look social. They don't see a total, and nothing on the post tells them how many others there are.

Can you hide view and share counts too?

Partly, and the labels tell you which. The per-post option in Advanced settings is worded as hiding like and view counts on that post, so on a Reel it covers the view number as well as the likes. The feed setting is worded as hiding like and share counts, reflecting the public share count Instagram now shows next to the paper-plane icon on many posts. Comment counts and the comments themselves stay visible either way; if you want quiet there, the tools are turning off comments on a post or limiting who can comment. Whatever you hide, your own insights keep every number.

How to see who liked your post on Instagram

Open the post and tap the likes line under it, whether it shows a number or Liked by. You'll see the list of accounts that liked it, and you can search it if it's long. That works the same whether the count is hidden or visible, because hiding only affects what other people see.

Reels work the same way. For Reels, the likes list sits behind the heart count, and Instagram's view count is separate, which who viewed your Instagram Reels covers.

How to see liked posts on Instagram

If you mean the posts you've liked yourself:

• Go to your profile and open the menu.
• Tap Your activity.
• Tap Likes, under interactions.
• Sort or filter by date or author, and tap the heart on any post to unlike it.

How can I see what a person likes on Instagram?

You can't. Instagram used to have a Following activity tab that showed what the people you follow were liking, and it removed that tab in 2019. Today there's no feature that shows another account's likes. You'll only see their name when they like a post you happen to open, in the Liked by line or the likes list.

Should you hide likes on Instagram?

Instagram offered the option because some people found comparing like counts stressful, and hiding them lets a post be judged on what it is. That's a reasonable choice for a personal account.

For an account that's building an audience, it's a trade-off. Hidden counts protect a post that underperformed, but they also hide a post that did well, and visitors lose a quick signal that other people found it worth liking. What is social proof explains why that signal shapes first impressions.

What hidden likes do to engagement rate

Engagement rate calculators that read public data can't count likes they can't see. On an account with hidden likes, a third-party tool will either skip the account or calculate from comments alone, which makes the rate look far lower than it is. Brands evaluating creators sometimes ask for screenshots of insights for this reason. How to calculate engagement rate on Instagram goes through the formulas and which numbers each one needs.

The owner's own numbers aren't affected. Insights still count every like, and Instagram hasn't said that hiding a count changes how a post is ranked. The likes still exist; only the display changes.

On posts where the count is visible, it's the first number a visitor reads. Accounts that want that number to reflect the post's quality sometimes buy Instagram likes on it, or add Reels likes to a Reel, and some build the audience behind every post with Instagram followers. That changes counts on display; it doesn't change what people think of the post once they see it. Every Instagram service is on the Instagram page.

Questions people ask about hiding likes on Instagram