How to Make Your Stories Private on Instagram

If both your friends and your work colleagues follow you on Instagram, you might find it hard to decide what to post and what not to post.

You could have a funny video from your crazy weekend that you want to upload to your Story. But, you’d be mortified if any of your work colleagues saw it. If you ever find yourself in this situation, Instagram has come to the rescue! You can actually make your stories ‘private’. Meaning, you can share that hilarious video of you from Saturday night without worrying about that one guy from Marketing showing your boss.

Close Friends List

This involves being able to choose who sees your Story, using a ‘Close Friends List’. You can create your own Close Friends List from the settings bar on your profile.

The Close Friends icon is nice and easy to find. Once you’ve found it, all you need to do is give it a tap! You should then be brought to a screen where you can choose exactly who you want to have on your list. You can either choose from the suggestions Instagram gives you, or search their name manually in the search bar.

It’s pretty obvious what you need to do to add someone to your list… You’ve guessed it, click the ‘add’ button next to their name.

It’s worth noting here that no one you’ve chosen to add will be notified that they’re on your list. It’s completely private.

So get building your list up! It is entirely down to you how big or small you’d like it to be. Just think about who those people are that you wouldn’t mind seeing your more private moments.

‘Finstagram’ Accounts

Private stories could address the common ‘Finstagram’ issue. If you aren’t too sure what a ‘Finstagram’ account is, I’ll quickly explain.

A ‘Finstagram’ is the name given to fake accounts on Instagram. These accounts have become increasingly popular over the years! One of the reasons behind people setting up fake accounts on Instagram is so that they can post whatever story they want, without worrying about certain people seeing them. For anyone that’s intrigued, here’s a short video with a slightly more detailed answer to ‘What is a “Finstagram”?‘.

This update to Instagram Stories could stop people from feeling the need to create these sketchy ‘Finsta’ accounts. Rather than creating a whole new account to control who sees their story, they can create a ‘Close Friends List’ instead.

So basically, thanks to Instagram we can post our stories without worrying we’ll be the talk of the office the next morning!