Who You Might Know on Instagram: Where Suggestions Come From

The short version: Instagram's "Who You Might Know" list is built from your phone contacts, email address book, mutual follows, shared devices and off-platform data Meta buys or collects through its ad network, not some mysterious algorithm reading your mind. You can turn most of it off in Settings, but you have to go looking because it is not switched off by default.

I run my business across platforms in the UK, US and worldwide, and clients ask me a version of this question constantly: "how does Instagram know I know that person, we've never messaged or followed each other." The answer is almost always boring and slightly uncomfortable at the same time. Boring because it's just data matching. Uncomfortable because most people never agreed to hand over the data being matched.

What feeds the suggestion list

Meta (Instagram's owner) pulls from several sources at once, and it rarely tells you which one triggered a specific suggestion. The main ones:

• Your contacts list. If you ever hit "sync contacts" on Instagram or Facebook, or gave either app permission to read your phone book, every name, number and email in there becomes a matching point.
• Mutual connections. If twelve of your followers all follow the same person, Instagram treats that as a strong signal, even if you've never heard of them.
• Shared device or network signals. Logging into Instagram on a friend's phone, or being on the same home Wi-Fi as someone at a family gathering, can create a link in the background.
• Off-platform data. Websites that use Meta's tracking pixel, apps that share data with Facebook's ad network, and email addresses used to sign up for newsletters can all feed into the profile Meta holds on you.
• Facebook crossover. If your Instagram is linked to a Facebook account, friend lists, group memberships and tagged photos all get pulled into the mix too.

None of this is a single algorithm you can point to. It is a scoring system that combines dozens of weak signals until one person crosses a threshold and shows up in your suggestions.

A worked example

Say you run a small events business and you meet a potential supplier at a trade show. You don't follow each other on Instagram, you don't swap numbers, you just chat for ten minutes and exchange business cards. Three days later, her profile shows up in your "Who You Might Know" list. Nothing sinister happened, but here is the likely chain: you both have Instagram apps with location access turned on, you were in the same venue at the same time, and Instagram cross-referenced that proximity data with mutual followers from the exhibitor list you both follow. Add in the fact that her email might be sitting in a CRM export you uploaded for an ad campaign eighteen months ago, and the match gets stronger still. It feels like coincidence. It is pattern matching across data you forgot you shared.

Step by step: how to control what feeds it

1. Open Instagram, go to your profile, tap the three lines, then Settings and privacy.
2. Go to "How others can find you" or "Connections" (wording shifts slightly between app versions).
3. Turn off "Connect contacts" if it's switched on. This stops Instagram using your synced phone book for suggestions.
4. Go to your phone's own settings (not the app's), find Instagram under app permissions, and revoke Contacts access entirely. The in-app toggle alone sometimes leaves cached data behind.
5. In Instagram settings, check "Accounts Center" and unlink Facebook if you don't need the crossover, since that single link pulls in an entirely separate pool of data.
6. Review ad settings under "Ads" or via your Meta Accounts Center and switch off "Ads shown off Meta technologies" to limit the off-platform tracking piece.
7. Delete old contact syncs by going to "Contacts syncing" and choosing to remove previously uploaded contacts, not just stop future syncing.

Do all seven steps and the suggestion list usually thins out within a few days, though it rarely disappears completely because mutual followers and public account data still feed it regardless of your settings.

The uncomfortable bit nobody likes admitting

Here's what most explanations of this topic skip: turning off contact syncing on your account does not undo matches that have already been made. If your number was uploaded by someone else's contact sync (a friend, a colleague, an ex), Instagram may still have you linked to their network even after you personally switch everything off. You are not fully in control of your own suggestion profile, because other people's syncing choices feed the same system. I tell clients this not to alarm them but because it changes the realistic goal: you're reducing new data flowing in, not erasing a history that already exists on Meta's servers. That is a different outcome from "privacy fixed," and most guides blur the two.

Why this matters for business accounts too

If you post for a brand, the suggestion engine works in your favour when it quietly puts your account in front of people who follow three of your competitors and two of your customers. That is free discovery you didn't pay for. But it cuts both ways: the same mutual-follower logic that helps strangers find your small business account is the reason your account might get suggested to your competitor's customer list right when you'd rather stay under the radar. If visibility matters to your strategy, don't fight the suggestion engine, feed it deliberately by following accounts in the audience you want, since Instagram reads that as a signal worth repeating. It is also worth checking your account isn't quietly broken in ways that undercut this, such as issues where Instagram is not letting you follow people, which stops the signal loop before it even starts.

Related privacy settings worth checking at the same time

While you're in Settings sorting out suggestions, it's worth tidying up the rest of your visibility in one sitting rather than coming back in a month. Check whether you want read receipts turned off on Instagram if you don't want people seeing when you've viewed their messages, and if you use Close Friends lists for client updates or personal posts, it's worth knowing whether Instagram notifies someone when you remove them from Close Friends before you start trimming that list. If search itself is playing up while you're trying to check who's suggested or follow new accounts, that's usually a separate fault worth ruling out, covered in why the Instagram search bar stops working.

What to do if the suggestions feel wrong

Sometimes the matches aren't just mildly off, they're troubling, like an ex-partner or someone from a situation you'd rather not be reminded of popping up repeatedly. In that case, go beyond the settings above: block the specific account (which removes them from suggestions permanently), clear your contact sync completely, and check if you're logged into Instagram anywhere unexpected via Settings > Security > Login Activity. One client scenario worth imagining: someone leaves a shared household, keeps their Instagram linked to a joint Wi-Fi network for a few more weeks, and keeps seeing their ex-partner's friends suggested. Removing the device link and changing Wi-Fi resets most of that within days.

Frequently asked questions

Does Instagram use my phone's microphone for Who You Might Know suggestions?

No. Meta has repeatedly denied this and no credible technical investigation has found evidence of microphone-based ad or suggestion targeting; the far more likely explanation for "it's listening to me" moments is shared contacts, location proximity, or ad network data matching that feels coincidental but isn't.

How do I stop a specific person from being suggested to me?

Tap the three dots next to their name in the suggestion list and choose "Remove," or block them outright if you want it permanent; muting alone won't stop the suggestion, only blocking or dismissing repeatedly tends to hold.

Will turning off contact syncing hurt my business account's reach?

It can slightly reduce suggestions to people in your personal contacts, but mutual-follower and interest-based signals keep working regardless, so most small business accounts see little to no drop in discovery.

Why does someone I only met once keep showing up as a suggestion?

Usually one shared signal got reinforced by others, such as a single mutual follower plus a synced contact plus time spent on the same Wi-Fi network, and once a few weak signals stack up, Instagram treats the match as strong even from one meeting.

Official documentation

• Instagram's own Help Centre
• Meta's Business Help Centre