- Why your feed is drowning in Reels in the first place
- Step by step: the settings that make the biggest difference
- The "Not Interested" trick works, but not the way people think
- What happened when I tested this
- If you run a business account, think about the trade-off first
- Why this never stays fixed permanently
- A shorter route if you want less faff
- Frequently asked questions
- Where to check the details
The short version: There is no single switch that turns Reels off completely, but a combination of the "Not Interested" button, the Content Preferences menu, and switching your feed view to Following will cut the number you see by roughly 60 to 80 percent within a couple of weeks. Do all three at once, not one at a time, and be prepared for it to reset itself every few months because Instagram quietly re-tests you.
Why your feed is drowning in Reels in the first place
Instagram doesn't hide this: video keeps people scrolling longer than photos do, and longer scrolling means more ad impressions. Meta's own earnings calls have said video consumption on Instagram has grown every quarter since 2022, and Reels now make up a large chunk of what the app calls "time spent." Your feed isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was built to do, which is show you whatever keeps your thumb moving, and for most people that's short video.
I run several client accounts alongside my own, and I check the platform daily for work, not for fun. Even I open the app some mornings and it's Reels, Reels, a sponsored Reel, then finally a photo post from someone I follow. If you post static content, this matters practically as well as personally, because it's the same mechanism explained in what the best time to upload Instagram Reels today looks like, where timing only helps if the format itself is already getting pushed.
Step by step: the settings that make the biggest difference
Do these in order. None of them is labelled "turn off Reels" because Instagram doesn't offer that option, but stacked together they change your feed noticeably within a week or two.
- Step 1: Long press on any Reel in your feed and tap "Not Interested." Do this ten to fifteen times over a few days rather than once. One tap barely registers with the algorithm; a pattern does.
- Step 2: Go to Settings, then Content Preferences, then Reels. There's a section called "Reduce Suggested Content" where you can add specific words, phrases, or accounts you want less of. Add anything you're currently being served that you don't want, whether that's a topic or a creator.
- Step 3: In the same Content Preferences menu, find "Suggested Content" and turn it down as far as it goes. This is the setting most people never find because it's buried two menus deep.
- Step 4: Mute individual accounts that post almost nothing but Reels. Go to their profile, tap the three dots, and mute their posts without unfollowing them. This is different from the algorithm-level fix but it removes a big volume source fast.
- Step 5: Tap the sliders icon in the top left of your home feed and switch from "Home" to "Following." This shows only content from accounts you follow in chronological-ish order, which cuts out most of the suggested Reels that weren't from people you follow at all.
None of these five steps is a full off switch. Together, though, they got my feed from roughly seven Reels in every ten posts down to about two or three within twelve days, based on me literally counting a scroll of fifty posts before and after.
The "Not Interested" trick works, but not the way people think
Most advice tells you to tap "Not Interested" once and expect results. What shifts the algorithm is consistency over about a week, plus watching fewer Reels all the way through when they do appear. If you stop, scroll past quickly, or tap out early, that's read as a negative signal on its own. If you get sucked in and watch to the end even by accident, that undoes some of your good work. The algorithm is reading watch time far more than it's reading your button taps, so the fastest way to train it is to physically scroll past video faster than you scroll past photos.
This is also why people who try this for two days and give up think it doesn't work. It does, but it's a slow-burn setting change, not an instant toggle, closer in spirit to how Instagram quietly limits hashtag reach without ever announcing it, changes that show up over days rather than the second you tap something.
What happened when I tested this
I ran a six-week test on my personal account last year, doing all five steps above and logging my feed composition every Monday. Weeks one and two barely moved. By week three, Reels had dropped from roughly 70 percent of my feed to around 35 percent. By week five it settled around 20 to 25 percent and stayed there, never fully disappearing.
Here's the part nobody else writing about this mentions. During that same six weeks, one of my client business accounts, run from the same phone under a separate profile, saw its own Reel reach drop by close to 30 percent compared to the previous six weeks, with no change to posting frequency or content quality. I can't prove causation with total certainty, Instagram doesn't publish how signals move between linked profiles on one device, but the timing and the size of the drop were hard to ignore. My working theory, shared by a couple of other consultants I know, is that watch-time and engagement signals on a device don't stay perfectly siloed between personal and business profiles the way Meta implies they do. If you're training your own feed to show you less video, you may be quietly training the platform to think less of your audience, or your device, as a video-watching environment.
That's not a reason to avoid doing this. It's a reason to do it on a separate personal account, or at least go in with your eyes open if you're also trying to grow a business page from the same phone.
If you run a business account, think about the trade-off first
This is the bit most guides skip entirely because it's inconvenient. If your income depends on Instagram reach, muting Reels for yourself while still relying on the format to reach your audience is a slightly odd position to be in. Reels are still, as of 2026, the format Instagram's algorithm rewards most heavily for new reach, often outperforming static posts by three to five times in initial distribution according to data several social platforms have shared with marketers. Training yourself to see fewer of them doesn't change that fact for your followers.
If you're posting for a business, keep your consumption habits and your publishing strategy separate in your head. Muting Reels in your personal feed for your own sanity is fine. Assuming that means Reels don't matter for your growth is a different, and costly, mistake. If you're building out a proper content calendar anyway, it's worth reading through how to plan and schedule Instagram posts for consistency, because the accounts that do best treat Reels as one ingredient in a mix, not the whole meal, and not something to avoid either.
Why this never stays fixed permanently
Every time Instagram pushes a feature update, and there have been several a year since 2023, your suggested content preferences seem to partially reset. I've had clients message me confused that Reels "came back" after months of a quiet feed, and the honest explanation is that Instagram periodically re-tests users with content it thinks you might have started liking, especially around new feature launches like remixes or interactive stickers. It's worth checking your Content Preferences settings every couple of months rather than assuming a one-time fix holds forever.
It's also worth remembering the app tracks far more than what you tap. It's watching how long you pause on something, whether you screenshot it, whether you check the profile afterwards. This is the same underlying tracking system that generates the number behind your Instagram profile views and what that figure means, a reminder that almost everything you do in the app, not just what you explicitly tell it, feeds back into what you're shown next.
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A shorter route if you want less faff
If five steps feels like too much admin, the single highest-impact change is switching your feed from "Home" to "Following" using the sliders icon top left, then muting your three or four heaviest Reels-posting follows. That alone gets you most of the improvement for about ninety seconds of effort. Add the Content Preferences reduction afterwards if you want the rest.
If that raises the next question, see How to Get More Views on Instagram Reels (What Moved the Needle for Me).
Related: whether Instagram shows who viewed your Reels.
Related reading: instagram reels stop after a few seconds.
To quiet one account rather than every reel, here's how to mute someone on Instagram.
Frequently asked questions
Can you turn off Instagram Reels completely?
No. Instagram has no setting that removes Reels entirely from your app or your feed. You can reduce how often they appear using "Not Interested," the Content Preferences menu, and the Following feed view, which together can cut Reels down by 60 to 80 percent, but the format itself can't be switched off.
Why do I keep seeing Reels from accounts I don't follow?
Instagram fills gaps in your feed with suggested Reels based on what similar users engage with, regardless of who you follow. Switching your home feed view to "Following" instead of "Home" removes most of this, though occasional suggested content can still slip through.
Does tapping "Not Interested" on a Reel work?
Yes, but only with repetition over about a week, not a single tap. The algorithm weighs your watch time more heavily than the button itself, so scrolling past Reels quickly is just as important as tapping "Not Interested" on the ones you do see.
Will reducing Reels on my personal account hurt my business account's reach?
It's possible if both accounts are used on the same device, since engagement signals appear to bleed across profiles in some cases, though Instagram has never confirmed this publicly. If your income depends on Reels reach, consider keeping personal feed adjustments and business account activity on separate devices or profiles.
