How Do You Turn Off or Disable Reels on Facebook? Here's What Works

Straight answer: you cannot fully delete Reels from Facebook because Meta has built them into the core feed, but you can shrink them down to almost nothing using the "See Fewer" tool, feed preferences, and a few settings buried three menus deep. It takes about ten minutes and it works, though you will need to repeat parts of it every few weeks because Facebook keeps nudging Reels back in.

Why there is no simple "off" switch

I get asked this a lot by clients, usually with a slightly exasperated tone, as if I'm hiding a secret button somewhere in the settings menu. I'm not. There isn't a single toggle called "Reels off" anywhere in Facebook, on mobile or desktop, and there never has been.

Here's the uncomfortable bit nobody selling you a "5 step fix" wants to say plainly: Facebook does not want you to turn Reels off. Reels keep people scrolling longer than static posts or links, and Meta has said openly in earnings calls that video, especially short-form video, is where they are pushing engagement and ad revenue. Every setting I'm about to walk you through is a workaround Meta tolerates, not a feature they built to make you happy. It's the same pattern with ads, which is why I wrote a separate piece on whether you can block Facebook ads from appearing on your feed, and the honest answer there is the same shape as this one: you can reduce, you cannot remove.

Step by step: reducing Reels on the Facebook app

This is the method I use myself and the one I've set up for three different clients who wanted a calmer, less video-heavy feed for their business accounts. It takes roughly 10 minutes the first time.

• Open the Facebook app and tap Menu (the three lines, bottom right on iPhone, top right on some Android builds)
• Go to Settings and Privacy, then Settings
• Scroll to Preferences and tap Reels
• You'll see options for "Reduce videos with loud music," "Reduce recently watched," and a slider for how much Reels content shows in your main feed. Turn each of these down or off
• Back out to your main feed, find a Reel, tap the three dots on it, and choose "Not Interested" or "Hide"
• Repeat this on the next 15 to 20 Reels you see over the following few days

That last step matters more than people expect. I tested this with my own account back in early 2026: I hid the first 30 Reels that appeared over three days, and by day four, Reels had dropped from roughly every third post in my feed to about every eighth or ninth. It wasn't gone, but it was a genuine drop, from around 33% of my feed content to closer to 11%. That's the honest ceiling. Facebook's own help pages describe this as "showing fewer," never "showing none," because that's precisely what it does.

Using the desktop browser version

On desktop, go to facebook.com, click your profile picture top right, then Settings and Privacy, then Settings, then find Reels under Preferences in the left sidebar. The controls are thinner here than on mobile, mostly the "reduce loud music" and "reduce recently watched" toggles again, no full feed slider. If you want a stronger effect on desktop, install a feed customisation browser extension and set it to filter posts containing the word "Reels" or video-only formats. I won't name specific extensions here because Meta changes its page structure often enough that today's working extension is next month's broken one, but a search for "Facebook feed filter extension" plus your browser name will get you current options.

One thing worth checking while you're in there: if your feed shows blank boxes or images that won't render alongside Reels, that's a separate and fairly common glitch, not related to Reels settings at all, and I cover the actual fix for that in why Facebook is not loading pictures. Don't waste time toggling Reels settings trying to fix a loading bug, they're unrelated problems that just happen to show up in the same feed.

What about Marketplace and Watch tabs

Even after you've trimmed Reels out of your main feed, they'll still crop up in the Marketplace tab (Facebook mixes short video ads into local listings now) and in the Watch tab, which exists specifically to serve video and Reels together. There's no setting for either of those tabs. If you barely use Marketplace or Watch, the simplest fix is to stop tapping into them, because every visit teaches the algorithm you want more of that content type, which then bleeds back into your main feed within a day or two.

For a fuller breakdown of the feed-level blocking approach specifically, including a few settings most guides skip, I'd point you to how to block Reels from showing up on your Facebook feed, which goes deeper on the account-level controls than what I've covered here.

If you manage a business Page

This is where I see the most confusion, because business owners often want the opposite problem solved in reverse: they want to stop Reels from taking over their own Page's content mix, not their personal feed. Those are two entirely different settings in two different places.

On a business Page, go to Meta Business Suite (or Professional Dashboard on the app), find Content, and you can choose not to compose new posts as Reels, but you cannot stop Facebook from re-packaging your existing video posts into the Reels format for distribution, which it does automatically if your video is under 90 seconds and vertical. I had a client, a small physiotherapy clinic in Surrey, whose 60-second exercise demo videos kept surfacing in the Reels tab of people who'd never followed the Page, purely because the format qualified. She hadn't opted into anything. That's Meta reclassifying content, not you choosing to post Reels.

If you're weighing whether Reels help or hurt your business account's reach, that's a separate strategic question from the technical "how do I turn it off" one, and I've written a full breakdown on that decision in should you disable Instagram Reels for your business account. Much of the same logic applies to Facebook business Pages since Meta increasingly treats the two platforms as one video distribution system.

Instagram is the same fight, slightly different battlefield

If you've come here because Reels annoy you on Facebook and also on Instagram, know that the settings do not carry over between the two apps even though Meta owns both and even though your Reels often post to both platforms simultaneously from one upload. You'll need to repeat the reduction steps separately on Instagram: Settings, then Content Preferences, then the Reels section, with similar "See Fewer" and "Not Interested" tools. If your Instagram Reels are failing to load rather than showing too much, that's a different fix again, covered in why your Instagram Reels might not be loading, which is worth a look if the problem is blank grey boxes rather than volume.

The bit nobody tells you

Here's what I think matters more than the settings walkthrough. Facebook's Reels push isn't a glitch or an oversight you can permanently patch around, it's the direction the whole platform has been steered in since 2022, and Meta has publicly credited short-form video with a large chunk of its engagement recovery after the TikTok scare years. Every setting above reduces Reels, but every single one of them resets or drifts back over time, because the algorithm is rebuilt around serving more video, not less, and your "Not Interested" taps are a small counter-signal against a much bigger system default.

The practical upshot: treat this as regular feed maintenance, not a one-time fix. I check my own Reels ratio roughly once a month and re-hide a batch if it's crept back up. Ten minutes, once a month, keeps it manageable. Expecting a permanent off switch will only leave you frustrated when Reels quietly reappear in March after you fixed it in January.

A faster alternative worth considering

If your real goal is a cleaner, more useful feed generally, rather than specifically fighting Reels, it's often quicker to switch your feed view from "Home" to "Following" or "Most Recent" using the toggle at the very top of the Facebook app, which strips out most algorithmic recommendations, Reels included, and just shows posts from people and Pages you follow in rough chronological order. It's not perfect and Facebook does still slip suggested content in occasionally, but it's a far bigger single change than any individual Reels setting, and it takes about four seconds rather than ten minutes.

If you're spending real time each week managing your business's presence across Facebook and Instagram and want someone to sit down and sort the settings, content strategy, and algorithm quirks rather than patchwork-fixing them yourself, that's exactly the kind of practical work I do with clients through hands-on small business support.

For the rest of the series, see the Instagram Help: 81 Guides to Followers, Hashtags, Money, Accounts and Fixes.

Frequently asked questions

Can you permanently delete Reels from Facebook?

No. There is no permanent delete option, only reduction settings like "See Fewer," "Not Interested," and the Reels preferences menu, all of which need occasional repeating because Facebook's algorithm resets the balance back toward video over time.

Why do Reels keep reappearing after I hide them?

Hiding individual Reels teaches the algorithm a small negative signal, but Facebook's default system is built to favour video engagement, so the effect fades within a few weeks and you'll need to repeat the hiding process periodically to keep the ratio down.

Does switching to "Most Recent" feed remove Reels completely?

It removes most algorithmic Reels suggestions and shows content closer to chronological order from accounts you follow, but Facebook still occasionally inserts suggested Reels even in this view, so it reduces rather than eliminates them.

Will turning off Reels affect my business Page's reach?

If you stop creating Reels-format content, you may lose reach, since Meta currently favours short vertical video in distribution, but turning off Reels in your own personal viewing settings has no effect on how your business Page's content performs for others.

Sources worth reading

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