How to Unfollow Accounts on Instagram Safely

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An easy-to-follow guide to unfollowing on Instagram

Written by Anyah Le Gilmore-Jones | Edited by Darlene Antonelli, MA

Last Updated: September 21, 2024 Fact Checked

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Are Mass Unfollowing Apps Safe?

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Unfollowing

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Who should I unfollow?

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Do you want to unfollow any Instagram accounts that don't follow you back? Or the inactive accounts? Sadly, there's no way to unfollow multiple accounts at once because Instagram has strict limits and spam detection. Instead, you can tap or click Unfollow from your "Following" list to easily cut down on the excess. This wikiHow article covers the unfollow limit on Instagram and what you can do instead.

Things You Should Know

Instagram has unfollowing limits, so you can usually unfollow about 180-200 accounts per day.
To be safe and avoid a shadowban or permaban, you should manually unfollow around 10 accounts per hour and never more than 200 in a day.
You should use the "Least Interacted with" category in "Following" so you can see which accounts you should unfollow first.

Section 1 of 3:

Are Mass Unfollowing Apps Safe?

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No. Apps like "Unfollow Users Cleaner" seem like fantastic apps to mass remove those you follow, but there are many reports of privacy issues and ghost actions on their accounts that have the unfollower app. These apps may claim to do exactly what you need them to do, but then end up stealing your login information and hacking your Instagram account instead.
- These apps may have been legitimate in the past, but have since fallen into disuse. "Unfollow Users Cleaner" hasn't been updated since 2022 or received a rating since 2021.

Section 2 of 3:

Unfollowing

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Open Instagram and go to your profile. You can either use the mobile app on your Android, iPhone, or iPad, or you can use a computer to go to https://instagram.com.^{[1]
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- Instagram implements limits in an attempt to keep spam to a minimum. They want their users to be human instead of bots. Some third-party services claim to act more human-like to avoid Instagram's consequences, but that is never 100% guaranteed. Signing up with a third-party service that mass unfollows profiles can trigger Instagram into thinking your account is a bot.
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Click or tap the "Following" counter. It's usually towards the right side of your profile.^{[2]
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- There is also a category you can use to unfollow people. It's called the "Least Interacted with" category and you'll see it as soon as you open your "Following" list. This is a good jumping-off point so you can see who you should unfollow first.
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Click or tap Following. If you're on a computer, confirm by clicking Unfollow.
- You've successfully unfollowed the person if the "Following" button is blue and says "Follow" instead.^{[3]
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Repeat for as many accounts that you'd like to unfollow. Since Instagram isn't fond of automated processes, you'll need to click or tap Following for every account that you'd like to unfollow.^{[4]
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- Instagram has some limits in place: if your account is newer, you can unfollow 50 accounts per day. If your account is older than 6 months, you can unfollow around 200-400 accounts per day.
- If you go over this limit, you might see an "Action Blocked" error or earn yourself a shadowban.
- If you use third-party services and continuously go over this limit, you might get permanently banned.

Section 3 of 3:

Who should I unfollow?

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Someone who hasn't been online since 2018 probably isn't worth following. To figure out which accounts are inactive, you can go through your following list and see when their last activity was.
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Bots and fake accounts. These accounts may act human to avoid spam detection, but there are a few tell-tale signs that they are fake:^{[5]
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- Their following count is way higher than their followers count.
- The few followers they do have are inactive or new accounts.
- If they have a large following, their content is terrible.
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People who unfollowed you or those who never followed you. Instagram's algorithm favors those with a high follower-to-following ratio, so you want to ditch anyone you're following that doesn't follow you back. Doing this will increase your ratio! Find your ratio by taking the number of your followers and dividing by the number of accounts that you follow.
- If you have 10,000 followers and follow 1,000 accounts, your follow ratio is 10 (or 10:1).
- An account with 1,000 followers and 150 accounts that they follow appears to be more of a consumer account: they consume more content than create it.
- If an account has 145k followers and only follows 150 accounts, that person is most likely a creator and pushes out a lot of content.
- An account with less than a following ratio of .5 (0.5:1) is most likely a spam account using follow-back schemes to gain followers.
- An account with a following ratio between .5 and 1 (0.5-1:1) is a low-quality account. They aren't necessarily spam, but the account holder isn't particularly picky about the accounts they follow and if they get followers back.
- A 1:2 following ratio is an average following ratio for an account. This takes into account that the account holder follows a lot of celebrities or public figures but also has a good amount of friends or networked followed accounts.
- A 2:10 following ratio signifies a quality account. These accounts are most likely worth a follow and tend to follow back.
- Accounts with a following ratio of 10:300,000+ are influencers. This sort of account gains a lot of followers and has a large influence.