These are quite basic settings that you don’t really need to go through more than once. You do need to know they exist though and how to change them to better suit your needs.
To get to your account settings, go to your profile and tap on ⚙️ for iOS or on 💬 for Android in the top right (on Android the settings link will appear at the bottom of the page). From there you have access to a lot of settings pertaining to your account as well as some extra features that most people don’t know about.
Let’s take them one by one and see what you can actually do.
First item on the list is Invite Friends, you can invite Facebook friends, invite contacts or simply friends. These are here to help new users grow their account and find some friends fast as without friends you can’t really do much and they will probably give up. It’s mostly for regular people though, should not be of any concern if you’re creating a business profile as you don’t necessarily want all your Facebook friends following that.
Next is the Follow People item, this should be used in case you only want to follow someone and see what they post and not make them friends so they also see what you post. Sub-items here are Facebook friends and Contacts.
See how much Instagram wants you to connect to other people? They make sure this is the first thing you do so they grow their platform.
Now there’s the Account settings, the main item on this list, here’s what you’ll find there.
As you can see you’ll be able to do the following here:
Password – use this to change your password if need be
Saved – you can save photos and videos here that you really like, this is a private place, no one will be notified what you saved and you’re the only one that has access here. You can also create collections with things you’ve saved
Payments – in case you add your CC and do any shopping on Instagram it will all show up here. Irrelevant for most people though
Posts you’ve liked – pretty self explanatory. What’s interesting is that many people don’t know about this feature as it’s a little hidden away, so keep it in mind just in case you need to see this at some point.
Original photos – this tells the Instagram app what to do with the photos you take and edit with the app
Search History – a history of what you’ve searched, be it accounts, locations, hashtags. You can also clear that history from here.
Cellular Data Use – relevant only in case Internet data is scarce or costs a lot where you’re from
Language – change the language in which you use the Instagram app
Private Account – you can make your account private or public from here. A private account means that only people you accept/approve can view the content you post. Private accounts are generally used for niches such as: adult, gambling, weed and so on. In 99% of the cases though you’ll want your account public as it can grow a lot faster.
Switch to Business Account & Sign up for a Business Profile – you can make your account a business one here to have access to additional tools like we’ve discussed in the previous lessons.
Next there’s the Privacy and Security section that gives you quite a decent amount of control over what you share and with whom.
Let’s take them one by one and see what each does:
Account Privacy – same as above with the “Private account” – for some reason they though this is really really important
Blocked Accounts – you’ll see here a list of all the accounts you’ve blocked over time, in case you want to un-block someone do it from here as well
Activity Status – accounts you follow and people you talk with via messages can see when you were last online if this is enabled. If you disable it however you won’t be able to see this info for other accounts either.
Resharing to Stories – allows other people to share your posts to their stories. Your username will show up with this reshare automatically. Make sure you keep this one enabled as you will get more exposure to your account when your followers reshare your posts to their stories.
Story Controls – several options for your stories. You can hide stories from certain people, allow message replies from everyone, people you follow or no one as well as options for saving and sharing as messages.
Comment Controls – lets you control the commets you get, you can allow comments from everyone (enabled by default & also recommended if you want the highest engagement), people you follow or no one, you can block comments from certain people and set up automatic or manual filter of bad words in the comments.
Photos of You – here you can choose whether you want photos where your account is tagged in to be automatically added to your profile or not. You can enable it so they get added automatically or you can disable it to hide those photos.
Linked Accounts – will list all linked accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Tubmlr, Ameba and Ok.ru . You can also set up the linking from here.
Account Data – keeps your account data, you will need to relogin to see the details
Two-Factor Authentication – this will double check that it’s you whenever you sign in by sending a code to your phone. If you only use Instagram on your phone and want to have your account really secure it’s a good idea to use it.
Data Download – you can download a copy of everything you’ve shared on Instagram. If you ever want a backup of everything this is a good option to use.
Contacts Syncing – unless you want all your contacts from your phone on Instagram you can definitely turn this off.
Privacy and Security Help – this is a whole sub-section dealing with the privacy issue. Since privacy started to be a big deal online you’ll find here everything you need to set all options up exactly as you want them to. If you’re concerned about this for your personal account feel free to change things around to your liking, otherwise they’re good as they are by default.
Lastly there are a few more options concerning Notifications, Support, About and Login:
Since there are not that important we’ll just mention them real fast.
Notification – you can enable/disable push , email and SMS notifications from here
Support – go to the help center and report a problem. Be advised this is not actually a support form where you can contact them with any problem you might have and they will respond in 24-48 hours being very helpful. That will mostly never happen. It is a knowledge base and a way to contact them with serious issues like account stealing. After you do you’ll have to wait quite a while before they respond.
About – settings for: App Updates, Ads, Privacy Policy (yes, again), Terms of Service and Open Source Libraries
Logins – where you can logout of your account or add another account. You can add up to 5 different Instagram accounts and you can switch in between them easier. This feature is quite helpful if you manage several Instagram accounts from your phone.
And that’s about it. For a phone app it certainly has a lot of settings that you can use to make your experience the way you want it up to a certain level. Also keep in mind these are the settings for a normal account. Business accounts have a few extra settings as well.
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