How to hide likes on Instagram (and why you might)

Want to stop stressing over like counts? Good news: Instagram lets you hide them. You can hide the likes on your own posts so no one else sees the number, and you can hide the like counts on everyone else's posts across your entire feed. Both take less than a minute.

Here's exactly how to do it, what each option actually changes, and a few reasons you might want to. If you manage a brand account, there's a quick note at the end on why this matters for how you read your real performance.

The short answer

There are two separate controls, and they do different things:

• Hide likes on your own posts: other people can't see the like total on that post. You still can.
• Hide likes on everyone's posts: a global setting that removes the visible like count from every post in your feed. This only changes what you see, not what others see.

You can turn either one on, both, or neither. None of it deletes the likes or affects who can like your content. It only hides the number.

How to hide like counts on your own posts

You can do this when you publish, or any time after on a post that's already live. To change an existing post, open it, tap the three dots in the top right, and choose to hide the like count. Here's the full flow.

What this changes

Once it's on, anyone visiting that post sees "liked by [username] and others" instead of the exact number. You'll still see the real count yourself when you tap into the likes list, so you don't lose any data. You can flip it back on whenever you want.

How to hide like counts on other people's posts

This one is a single global switch in Settings, and it applies to your whole feed at once. Lead with the steps: open Settings and activity, go to Likes and shares (older app versions list it under "Privacy" then "Posts"), and turn on Hide like and view counts.

After that, you won't see like totals on any post from any account as you scroll. It's a clean way to make Instagram feel less like a scoreboard. The setting is just for you, so the people you follow have no idea you turned it off, and their own counts stay visible to everyone else.

Why you might want to hide likes

A few honest reasons people do this:

• Less comparison. Hiding other people's counts takes the pressure out of scrolling. You judge posts on whether you actually like them, not on whether they hit some number.
• Less pressure on your own posts. Hiding your counts means a post that's slow out of the gate doesn't broadcast that to everyone. Useful if you post personal content and don't want the number to define it.
• Mental health. Instagram added these controls partly because public like counts can feel like a popularity contest. For a lot of people, turning them off just makes the app calmer.

One thing it does not do: hiding likes won't change your reach or how the algorithm treats your posts. Likes still count behind the scenes. You're only hiding the display.

What hiding likes means if you run a brand account

Hiding the public count can actually help your audience focus on your content instead of the scoreboard. But you, the person posting, still need the real numbers to know what's working. So check your private metrics, not the public-facing total.

Likes are only one signal anyway. Reach tells you how many unique people saw a post, and your engagement rate ties likes, comments, saves, and shares to that reach so you're comparing fairly across posts of different sizes. Saves and shares often say more about whether content landed than likes do.

If you post across several accounts, pulling those numbers into one view saves a lot of tab-switching. A social tool with built-in analytics shows the metrics that actually move the needle in one place, so you can hide the vanity number publicly and still make smart decisions privately. Pair that with a steady posting rhythm using a content calendar and you'll learn far more from patterns over time than from any single like count.