What Does Reposting Do on Instagram?

A repost moves someone else's post in front of your audience. It doesn't make a copy, so the numbers it earns stay on the original.

Updated October 2026

What happens when you repost on Instagram?

A repost is Instagram's built-in way to share another account's public feed post or Reel with your own followers, with the original creator credited on it. Four things happen when you tap the button:

• The post becomes eligible to be recommended in your followers' feeds, labeled as reposted by you.
• It's added to the Reposts tab on your profile, separate from the grid of things you posted yourself.
• The original account keeps the credit. Your followers see who made it and can open their profile from it.
• Interactions go to the original post. There's no duplicate with its own like or view counter.

What does reposted mean on Instagram when you see it on a post?

When a post in your feed carries a reposted label with a name on it, someone you follow tapped Repost on it. You're seeing the creator's original post, delivered through that person. Liking or commenting on it is liking or commenting on the creator's post, not on the repost.

How do you repost on Instagram, step by step?

The button lives on public feed posts and Reels. In current versions of the app:

1. Open the post or Reel you want to share.

2. Tap the Repost icon, the two looping arrows near the like, comment and share icons.

3. That's it. The post is reposted and added to your Reposts tab. Tap the same icon again to undo it.

If you don't see the icon, the post is either from a private account or the creator has switched reposts off for their content. Both are covered below.

How to reshare an Instagram post the older way still works too: the paper-plane icon sends it by direct message or adds it to your Story. Those are shares, not reposts, and they behave differently. Sending by DM is private, and how to see who shared your Instagram post explains what the creator can and can't see about each kind.

Do reposts show up on your followers' feed?

They can. Meta's own wording is that reposts are recommended to your followers' feeds, which is not the same as guaranteed. A repost competes for space like anything else Instagram recommends, so some followers will see it and others won't.

This is the part that matters to the creator. The repost can reach people who don't follow them, which no amount of posting to their own followers would do. A Reel that gets reposted by a few accounts with different audiences reaches a set of strangers that the creator's own followers never would have shown it to.

For the person reposting, the effect is quieter. Your followers see your taste, and nothing gets added to your post count.

Does reposting count as a view or a share for the original creator?

Views count, because the repost shows the original. When one of your followers watches a reposted Reel, that play is a play of the creator's Reel, and it's counted there under Instagram's normal rules. What counts as a view on Instagram covers those rules for Reels, photos and carousels.

Likes, comments and saves made on a repost also land on the original post, since there's no separate post to hold them.

A repost is not a share, though. Instagram treats them as two different actions: a share sends the post somewhere, a repost publishes it to your audience. Whether a professional account's Insights lists reposts as their own line has varied by account and app version, and the labels change often, so check the post's own insights screen rather than expecting a fixed name. What shows up reliably is the effect: reach and views from accounts that don't follow you.

The practical upshot for a creator is simple. A post that gets reposted doesn't show a repost badge on its numbers. It shows higher reach and more views on the original, coming from people who don't follow the account.

Where do reposts show up on your profile?

In their own tab. Your profile has the grid of your own posts, a Reels tab, and a Reposts tab with the posts and Reels you've reposted. Anyone who can see your profile can open that tab.

That keeps your grid clean, which was the old objection to reposting with screenshots or third-party apps. Those methods put someone else's content in your grid as if it were yours, with whatever credit you remembered to type in the caption.

A private account works the same way for its approved followers. Its own posts, on the other hand, can't be reposted by others to a wider audience, because the Repost button only appears on public content.

How do you turn off reposts on Instagram?

There are two different things people mean by this.

To stop other people reposting your content, open Settings and look under the sharing and reuse controls for the reposts switch, then turn it off. Your posts and Reels lose the Repost button for everyone else. The exact label has moved between app versions, so if you can't find it, search Settings for reposts.

To remove something you reposted, open it and tap the Repost icon again. It leaves your Reposts tab and stops being recommended under your name.

What you can't do, as of October 2026, is keep your reposts while hiding the tab from visitors. How to hide reposts on Instagram comes down to undoing them one by one.

One caution before switching reposts off: they're one of the few ways a post reaches people who don't follow you. Turning them off closes that door for every post at once.

Can you repost an Instagram story?

Not with the Repost button, which is for feed posts and Reels. Stories have their own rule: you can add someone's Story to your own Story when they mentioned you in it, from the notification or the DM Instagram sends you. Otherwise you can send a Story by DM, which stays private.

If what you want is to put a feed post or Reel in your Story, use the paper-plane icon and choose to add it to your Story. The creator can switch that off too, which is why the option is sometimes missing.

To save a post for yourself instead of sharing it, the bookmark is the right tool, and how to save a video on Instagram covers where saved posts go.

Is reposting worth it, for either side?

For creators, being reposted is one of the cleanest forms of reach Instagram offers, because it carries a post to a new audience with credit attached. It's also why some creators now ask for reposts instead of shares in their captions.

For the reposter, it's a way to keep a profile active and show what you care about without producing anything. It won't grow your own counts, since none of the numbers stay with you.

What gets reposted is what someone wants their own followers to see: useful, funny or worth an opinion. A Reel that opens with a near-empty view counter gets less of that benefit of the doubt, which is why some accounts buy Instagram Reels views or Instagram likes for a new post. That changes the number displayed. It doesn't make anyone tap Repost, and the reposts still have to come from real people. Every Instagram service is listed on the Instagram page, and how to increase Instagram reach covers what tends to move reach without paying for anything.

Questions people ask about reposting on Instagram