How to Mute Someone's Story on Instagram (2026 Guide)

Press and hold the person's profile picture in the Stories row at the top of your feed, tap Mute, then choose Mute story or Mute story and posts. Instagram does not tell them. Their account keeps working the same way for you the moment you undo it.

That covers most people. The rest of this guide covers the other places Instagram hides the mute option, how to silence Notes, how to find everyone you have muted, and when a different tool (Restrict, Block, Unfollow, Close Friends) fits the situation better.

Mute from the Stories row

This is the quickest route, and the menu looks the same on iPhone and Android.

1. Open Instagram and stay on the Home tab.
2. In the Stories row, press and hold the profile picture of the account you want quiet.
3. Tap Mute.
4. Pick Mute story, or Mute story and posts if their feed posts bother you too.

Wording shifts between app versions, and Instagram rolls out interface changes unevenly, so your menu may be labeled a little differently. The Instagram Help Center article on muting a story is where the current wording lives.

Mute from a profile, with separate toggles

The profile route gives you the most control, because Posts, Stories and Notes each get their own switch.

1. Open the person's profile.
2. Tap Following under their bio.
3. Tap Mute.
4. Switch on whichever of Posts, Stories and Notes you want hidden.

Instagram's own guide to restrict, mute, block and report describes this path. It is the one to use when a friend posts Stories all day but shares a good photo once a month. Mute Stories, leave Posts off, and the grid keeps coming through.

Mute from a post in your feed

When a post is the thing that finally annoys you, start from there.

1. Tap the three dots beside the post.
2. Tap Hide.
3. Tap Mute and the username.
4. Choose Mute posts or Mute posts and stories.

Notes have their own switch

Notes are the short text bubbles above profile pictures in your inbox. Muting someone's messages, posts or Stories leaves their Notes alone. If a muted account keeps appearing as a little thought bubble, open the profile, tap Following, tap Mute and turn on Notes.

Unmute and review everyone you muted

Reverse the same path: open the profile, tap Following, tap Mute, and switch the toggles off. For a spring clean, check your Settings for a Muted accounts list (Instagram has placed it under the privacy settings in some versions, and the location moves around). Anyone you silenced a year ago and forgot about shows up there.

Unmuting someone does not announce itself either. They never learn about the mute, so there is nothing to reverse on their end.

What the muted person sees

Nothing changes on their side. Instagram does not send a notification when you mute an account, and you keep following them. Your profile, posts and Stories stay visible to them as before.

Muting only edits your own view. If your goal is to stop someone watching your Stories, a mute does nothing, and the options further down (Close Friends, Restrict, Block) are the right levers.

Mute, Restrict, Block, Unfollow and Close Friends compared

Five tools reduce contact, and they point in different directions. Mute and Unfollow change what you see. Restrict and Block change what the other person can do. Close Friends changes who sees your Stories.

Restrict and Block descriptions follow Instagram's restrict, mute, block and report guide. A practical way to choose: Mute for noise, Restrict for friction, Block for harm, Unfollow when you want the relationship over.

Messages are a separate setting

Muting posts and Stories leaves your chats alone. To silence a conversation, open the chat, tap the info icon and turn on Mute messages. Instagram also lets you mute call notifications from the same screen. Use it for group chats that ping all day while you keep the follow.

Who uses mute, and why it matters to brands

Plenty of people mute rather than unfollow because it carries no social cost. A relative who posts forty Stories a day, an ex, a colleague you cannot unfollow, a competitor you watch for research. The follow stays, the ring stops nagging.

Flip the view and a brand account has the same exposure. Nobody gets told when they are muted, so the signal arrives later as slowly shrinking Story views. The usual triggers are easy to spot: six slides repeating one sale, text cards that take eight taps to read, reposts without context, and one format on a loop.

The fix lies in the creative. Face-forward video with a hook in the first second holds attention better than a graphic recap, and keeping text inside the Instagram safe zones stops the interface covering it. The safe zone checker lets you test a frame before posting, and the AI hook generator helps with openings. For volume, EzUGC's AI UGC video tool turns a script into a UGC-style video with an AI actor, which makes testing several Story creatives a week realistic for a small team.

Cadence deserves a look as well. The guide to how long Instagram Stories last covers the 24-hour window, and the walkthrough on adding music to a Story covers one of the easiest ways to make a Story feel finished. If you share other people's content, the repost a Story guide shows the steps.

Quick reference

If you only remember one thing, remember the order of effort. Hold the avatar in the Stories row for a five-second mute. Use Following then Mute on a profile when you want to split Posts, Stories and Notes. Use Hide from a feed post when that post is the trigger. Everything else on this page covers the cases where a mute is the wrong tool.