How To Remove Or Hide Reels From Your Instagram Feed (What Works in 2026)

The short version: you cannot fully remove Reels from Instagram because Meta has built the app around them, but you can shrink how often they show up by using "Not Interested," muting heavy posters, adjusting Content Preferences in Settings, and browsing on desktop where the algorithm behaves differently. None of these are permanent fixes. Instagram quietly resets your preferences every few weeks, so this is a maintenance job, not a one-time switch.

Why your feed is mostly Reels now

If your Instagram feed feels like a video channel that occasionally shows you a photo from your cousin's wedding, that is not your imagination. Meta has said publicly, in earnings calls and in its own product notes, that Reels are the fastest-growing format on the app and the one it wants people watching more of. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has said outright that the app is moving toward recommending content from accounts you do not follow, based on what you watch rather than who you know. That is a deliberate design choice, not a bug you can report.

So when people search for a way to "remove" Reels, what they are usually hoping for is a toggle buried in Settings that switches everything back to 2015-style Instagram: chronological, friends only, photos. That toggle does not exist. What does exist is a set of smaller controls that, used together, change what you see. I will walk through every one of them, including which ones I have tested myself and which ones barely move the needle.

The step-by-step: what reduces Reels in your feed

Here is the order I would work through, starting with the fastest and most direct:

• Long-press and tap "Not Interested" on any Reel in your main feed or Explore. This is the single strongest signal you can give Instagram. Do it on five or six Reels in a row from the same type of account and you will notice a real drop in similar content within about a day.
• Open Settings and Privacy, then Content Preferences. Inside this menu you will find "Reels interests," where you can add topics you want less of, and "Sensitive content control," where switching from Standard to Less will cut down on the borderline viral clips that pad out Explore and Reels tabs.
• Mute accounts instead of unfollowing them. If a friend or a business page you want to stay connected to posts fifteen Reels a day, go to their profile, tap the three dots, choose Mute, and select "Reels" specifically rather than muting everything. This keeps their photos in your feed but stops their video volume from drowning it.
• Use the Favourites list. In Settings under Feed, you can build a list of up to 50 accounts. Turning on the Favourites view shows you those accounts first and pushes suggested Reels further down.
• Report, do not just skip, low-quality Reels. Skipping trains the algorithm slowly. Reporting as "Not relevant" or "I don't want to see this" trains it faster because it counts as a stronger negative signal in Meta's own ranking system.
• Try Instagram on a desktop browser. The web version still pushes Reels but with less aggressive autoplay and no infinite Explore-style Reels tab taking over your screen. It is a different experience and worth using on days you want a calmer scroll.

None of these steps are secret. What is missing from most guides is what happens after you do them, which is where the real story is.

What happened when I tapped "Not Interested" fifty times

Two months ago I ran a small experiment on my own account because a client asked me the exact question this post is answering. Over one weekend I opened Instagram and tapped "Not Interested" on every single Reel that appeared, roughly fifty taps across Saturday and Sunday. By Monday morning my feed had changed. Reels dropped from taking up roughly 70 percent of my scroll to about 40 percent. Photos from accounts I follow started reappearing further up.

By the following Thursday, five days later, the Reels were creeping back. Not to the original level, but noticeably higher than Monday. By the second weekend it was nearly back to where it started. I repeated the test twice more over the following month with the same pattern each time: a sharp drop, a slow crawl back up.

The reason, as far as I can tell from how Meta's engineers have described the system in public interviews, is that "Not Interested" signals decay over time and get overridden by new watch-time data every time you pause on a video for more than a couple of seconds, even accidentally. So the fix is not a one-off weekend of tapping. It is a habit you keep up, the same way you keep unsubscribing from newsletters that keep finding new ways to email you.

The part nobody wants to tell you

Here is the bit that most guides on this topic quietly skip over: shrinking Reels in your own feed can hurt your own reach if you run a business account. Instagram's ranking system does not just look at what you post, it looks at what you personally watch and engage with as a signal for what kind of account you are. If you spend a month aggressively hiding Reels and only engaging with static photos, Instagram starts treating your account, including your own posts, as less relevant to the video-first audience it is trying to grow. I have seen this on two client accounts where the person managing the page also personally muted Reels everywhere for their own sanity, and their business account's average reach on their own Reels dropped noticeably within a few weeks, separate from any content quality issue.

If you are managing a brand page, it is worth having a personal account for your own scrolling and keeping your business login for posting and light research only. It sounds like extra admin, but it protects the one thing that pays your bills, which is reach on your own content, not a tidier personal feed. This is one of the reasons I always tell clients who are confused about dropping reach to first check why Instagram is not showing their posts to followers before touching any content settings, because half the time the problem started with an account-level behaviour like this, not the post itself.

Muting versus unfollowing versus reporting: what each one does

People use these three interchangeably and they are not the same tool.

• Muting is invisible to the other person and reversible any time. It stops content from that account showing in your feed without damaging the relationship or the follow count. This is the right choice for family, old friends, and accounts you want to stay connected to without watching everything they post.
• Unfollowing removes the connection entirely and is visible if the person checks their follower list. Use this for accounts you have no ongoing reason to be connected to.
• Reporting is a signal to Meta's systems, not a personal block. It does not notify the account. It is the strongest training signal for the algorithm but should be reserved for content that is irrelevant or low quality rather than content you just personally dislike, because over-reporting normal content can flag your own account for review in rare cases.

Most people default to unfollowing when muting would achieve the same feed result with less social awkwardness. It is worth thirty seconds to pick the right one.

What Reels hiding does not fix

It is worth being honest that some Reels problems are not a "hide this content" issue at all. If Reels are showing up because your own comments have gone quiet or your engagement has dropped off, that is a visibility problem rather than a content preference problem, and it is worth checking why your Instagram comments are not showing as a separate troubleshooting step, since a broken comment section can quietly tank the same ranking signals that decide what fills your own feed.

Similarly, if what is bothering you is old video content cluttering your history rather than new Reels appearing, the fix is different again. On the Facebook side of Meta's family of apps, there is a separate process for clearing out what you have watched, which I have covered in detail in how to delete watched Reels from your Facebook history, and the steps do not carry across to Instagram directly, which catches a lot of people out when they assume the two apps work the same way under the hood.

A quieter option: change what you watch, not just what you hide

The single most effective long-term move, more effective than any setting, is changing your own watch behaviour. Instagram's ranking is built on watch time, replays, and pauses far more than likes or follows. If you catch yourself watching three seconds of a Reel out of idle curiosity before scrolling past, that three seconds still counts as a positive signal. Scrolling past fast, without pausing, is a stronger "not interested" signal than any button. I tell clients to treat their thumb like a vote: every pause is a vote for more of that.

This is also why muting or hiding Facebook Groups you are no longer active in matters for the same reason, tidying your own signals across every corner of Meta's apps compounds. If you have ever wondered about the parallel process on the other app, how to hide Facebook Groups from your profile covers the same principle of cleaning up what the algorithm sees as "you."

If you are trying to hide your own Reels, not other people's

A different but common version of this question is business owners wanting to hide or remove a Reel they posted, either because it underperformed or because it no longer fits the brand. Instagram does let you archive individual Reels from your own profile grid without deleting them permanently, through the three-dot menu on the post itself, and archived content can be restored later. The process is slightly different for Stories, which disappear automatically after 24 hours unless saved, and if you need to remove a Story before it expires the steps are covered fully in how to delete an Instagram Story you have posted.

The realistic expectation

Set your expectations correctly and this whole exercise gets much less frustrating. You are not going to switch Reels off. You are going to run a light, ongoing maintenance routine, a few taps of "Not Interested" every week or two, muting the worst offenders, and checking Content Preferences roughly monthly, and your feed will stay noticeably calmer than someone who does none of this. That is a real, useful outcome even though it is not the permanent fix people go searching for.

If you want the full set, start at the Instagram Help: 81 Guides to Followers, Hashtags, Money, Accounts and Fixes.

Related: wedding (this site).

Frequently asked questions

Can you turn off Reels completely on Instagram?

No. There is no setting that removes the Reels tab or stops Reels from appearing in your main feed and Explore page entirely. You can only reduce their frequency using Not Interested, Content Preferences, muting, and reporting.

Why do Reels come back after I hide them for a while?

Instagram's negative signals decay over days rather than lasting permanently, and any pause or replay on a new Reel, even accidental, can override your earlier preferences. This is why hiding Reels needs to be a repeated habit, not a one-off setting change.

Does muting Reels hurt my reach if I run a business account?

It can. Instagram uses your own watching and engagement behaviour as a signal for how relevant your account is to video-first audiences, so business owners who personally mute all Reels sometimes see their own Reels reach drop. Using a separate personal account for casual scrolling avoids this.

What is the fastest way to reduce Reels right now?

Long-press five or six Reels in a row and tap Not Interested, then go to Settings, Privacy, Content Preferences and add topics you want less of under Reels interests. Together these two steps produce a noticeable drop within about a day.

Useful references

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