How to Hide Likes on Instagram: A Complete Guide

How to Hide Like Counts on Your Instagram Posts

Instagram offers two ways to hide likes on your own posts: a global setting that applies to everything you publish, and a per-post toggle for selective control. Both are available on personal, creator, and business accounts.

Hide likes on all your posts at once

1. Open Instagram and go to your profile.
2. Tap the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner.
3. Tap Settings and privacy.
4. Scroll to Posts (under the Content section).
5. Toggle Hide Like and View Counts on.

Once enabled, all of your posts — past and future — will show "Liked by [username] and others" instead of a specific number. You can still see your own like counts in Instagram Insights and by tapping the "and others" text directly on any of your posts.

Hide likes on a single post

If you prefer to keep likes visible on most of your content but hide them on specific posts, you can do that on a post-by-post basis:

1. Go to the post you want to modify.
2. Tap the three-dot menu (top-right of the post).
3. Select Hide like count.

This only affects the selected post. You can reverse it the same way by choosing "Unhide like count" from the same menu. This per-post approach is popular with Canadian creators who want to hide likes on sponsored content but keep them visible on organic posts where high engagement serves as social proof.

What happens when you hide likes

• Public view: visitors see "Liked by [username] and others" instead of a number.
• Your view: you still see the exact like count in Insights and by tapping through.
• Algorithm: unaffected. Likes still count toward reach and distribution.
• Notifications: you still receive like notifications as normal.
• Reels and Stories: view counts on Reels follow the same toggle. Story view counts are separate and always visible to you.

How to Hide Likes on Other People's Posts

Instagram also lets you hide like counts across your entire feed — so you do not see how many likes anyone gets. This is a feed-level setting, not something applied to individual accounts.

1. Open Instagram and go to your profile.
2. Tap the menu icon (three lines).
3. Tap Settings and privacy.
4. Tap Posts.
5. Toggle Hide Like and View Counts on.

This is the same toggle that hides likes on your own posts — it works in both directions. When enabled, every post in your feed, Explore page, and search results will show "Liked by [username] and others" instead of a number.

You can still see the like count on any post by tapping the "and others" text, so the information is not gone — it is just not front-and-centre. Many users find this reduces the instinct to judge content by its numbers and makes scrolling feel less competitive.

What this setting does not cover

• Follower counts: this toggle does not affect follower or following numbers on profiles. If you want to manage follower visibility, see our guide on how to hide your followers too.
• Story view counts: the number of views on Stories is only visible to the poster, not to viewers, so there is nothing to hide on the viewer side.
• Comment counts: the number of comments remains visible regardless of this setting.

Why Canadian Creators Are Hiding Likes

Since Instagram introduced the option to hide likes globally in 2021 — first tested in Canada, notably — the feature has seen steady adoption. Here is why creators and businesses are using it.

Reducing comparison anxiety

Visible like counts create an implicit ranking system. A post with 47 likes next to a competitor's post with 4,700 likes can feel discouraging, even when the smaller account is reaching exactly the right audience. Hiding likes removes that constant comparison and lets creators focus on content quality rather than public metrics. Research from the Canadian Centre for Digital and Media Literacy has noted that removing visible social validation cues can reduce anxiety for younger users in particular.

Encouraging authentic posting

When likes are visible, there is a natural pull toward posting "safe" content that is likely to get high engagement — trends, memes, formats that have worked before. Hiding likes can free creators to experiment with content that serves their niche even if it does not generate mass appeal. Several Canadian lifestyle and photography creators have reported that hiding likes encouraged them to post more niche-specific content, which ultimately attracted a more engaged following. Sharing user-generated content is another way to post authentically without the pressure of manufacturing engagement — our guide on how to repost a Story on Instagram covers the steps for resharing tagged mentions to your own Story.

Levelling the playing field for smaller accounts

A low like count can create a negative feedback loop: people see low engagement, assume the content is not worth their time, and scroll past — which keeps engagement low. Hiding likes breaks that loop. Visitors evaluate the content on its own merit rather than using the like count as a shortcut for quality. For newer Canadian accounts building momentum, this can be a meaningful advantage during the early growth phase.

Brand partnership considerations

Some creators worry that hiding likes will deter brands from partnering with them. In practice, most brand partnership audits rely on private metrics shared through Instagram Insights or third-party analytics tools, not public-facing like counts. If you work with brands regularly, hiding likes publicly while sharing detailed analytics privately is a common approach that satisfies both transparency and the benefits of hidden counts.

Does Hiding Likes Affect Your Engagement?

This is the question most creators ask before flipping the switch, and the answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

Algorithm impact: none

Hiding likes is a display preference, not an algorithmic signal. Instagram has confirmed that the ranking algorithm treats posts with hidden likes identically to posts with visible likes. Your content still receives likes, those likes still feed into reach calculations, and the algorithm still uses engagement velocity to decide how widely to distribute your posts. Nothing changes under the hood.

Audience behaviour: mixed

Some creators report a slight dip in likes after hiding counts, which makes sense — visible like counts create a bandwagon effect where people are more likely to like a post that already has many likes. Without that social proof cue, each viewer makes the decision independently. Other creators report no change or even an increase, particularly in comments. When likes are hidden, viewers who want to express approval sometimes shift to commenting instead, which is a higher-value engagement signal for the algorithm.

What to test

The best approach is to run a 30-day test. Hide likes for a full month, then compare your Insights data against the previous 30 days. Look at:

• Total likes: did the raw number change, or just the public display?
• Comments: did comment volume increase?
• Saves and shares: these are higher-intent signals and often more telling.
• Reach: did algorithmic distribution change?
• Follower growth rate: did the pace of new followers shift?

For most accounts, the differences are marginal. The bigger impact is usually psychological — how you feel about posting when the numbers are not staring back at you. If hiding likes makes you post more consistently and experiment more freely, that behaviour change alone will likely outperform any small metric shift from the visible count.

Likes still matter for growth

Whether or not you display them, likes remain one of the core engagement signals that drive algorithmic reach. A post that earns strong early engagement — likes, comments, saves, shares — gets pushed to more viewers through the Explore page, hashtag results, and the main feed. If you are looking to boost engagement on key posts, our Instagram likes packages can help establish the early momentum that triggers wider distribution, regardless of whether counts are visible or hidden.

How to Turn Likes Back On

If you decide that visible likes serve your strategy better, reversing the change is instant:

1. Go to Settings and privacy > Posts.
2. Toggle Hide Like and View Counts off.

Like counts reappear immediately on all posts — both yours and those in your feed. For individual posts where you hid likes via the three-dot menu, tap the same menu and select "Unhide like count." There is no penalty, cooldown, or algorithmic consequence for toggling this setting on and off.

FAQ: Hiding Likes on Instagram