How to Remove Followers on Instagram without Blocking Them

In this guide, you’ll discover all the ways you have to delete followers on Instagram.

To be clear, we are talking about how to remove someone from following you on Instagram, not removing people you follow.

Reasons for wanting to remove followers on Instagram

On Instagram, many people seek the goal of having as many followers as possible.

And to that end, they use all kinds of techniques, from following a lot of people hoping to receive a follow back, automating the posting of comments or likes on other accounts, and even buying followers.

But bigger is not always better.

Millions of pictures are posted every day to Instagram, so an algorithm is needed to dictate which ones to show and which ones not to show (or at least, which ones to show the most)

That’s where the engagement comes into play.

The engagement, or better said, engagement rate, is the percentage of your followers that interact with your publication, (being the interaction a like, comment, save…)

So:

If you have 1,000 followers and you get 100 likes on a picture, you have an engagement rate of 10%.
But if you have 10,000 followers (because you bought thousands of fake followers), and you receive the same 100 likes on a photo, suddenly your engagement rate is just 1%, which is much worse.

Of course, is not that simple, for example, there are also bots capable of interacting automatically (although Instagram is getting better and better at detecting them)

But you get the point on why you should get rid of (some) followers on Instagram.

Which followers should you delete from your profile?

Now that you know that bad followers can hurt your engagement rate and your Instagram profile, you’re probably wondering what kind of followers you should remove.

“Follow-backers”: a “follow-backer” is a person who just follows you waiting for you to follow him back. You’ll quickly spot them because usually, they follow the maximum number of accounts Instagram allows, which is 7,500.
Fake/bot accounts: fake accounts are the ones with very few or no posts at all. They may not even have a profile picture or a bio, and many times they will be accounts in a language other than your own (especially Russian!)
Inactive people: many people left Instagram for newer and freshers social networks like TikTok so, as they are not there anymore, they won’t be able to interact with your updates. It’s difficult to identify these accounts, as they may not post, but be very active in reading and commenting on other’s people publications.
Ghost followers: this is very similar to the follow-backers. A ghost follower is a person who has never interacted with you. They are complex to detect without third-party applications, but there is one type of profile that gives them away: company and product profiles.

Does Instagram remove followers?

if you have the feeling that Instagram is deleting your followers, you are right.

Instagram can and actually removes your followers from time to time.

Although technically, he is not removing your followers, he is just deleting fake/bot accounts, so if any of them were following you, they will disappear from your follower list.

Removing followers vs. restricting vs. blocking

Instagram has several tools to limit the access of (potential) followers to your profile.

Apart from making your profile private and having to manually approve your followers, you have 3 control options, each one more aggressive than the last:

Restricting: a restricted account will still be able to see your posts and comment on them. But you won’t see these interactions (and neither do your other followers). It’s a good way to control trolls without creating a confrontation. But as you can imagine, this restriction does not remove the user from your list of followers
Removing: what this guide is all about. If you remove one account from your profile, it means that you force the other account to stop following you.
Blocking: the most aggressive method. With a block, you will remove the target account from your list of followers, and they will not be able to see your posts (even if your profile is public) or follow you again.

If you remove a follower on Instagram will they know?

The beauty of the restricting option is that they will never know that their likes, comments, and DM’s are not really being published, so you’ll be avoiding an uncomfortable situation.

If you block anyone, they will quickly notice once they visit your profile again.

How to delete Instagram followers by Blocking them

Remember that by doing this, although the user won’t be notified, it will quickly notice you blocked him/her once he visits your profile again.

This method is especially useful for deleting toxic people but it’s not worth the extra effort if you want to eliminate fake, bots or ghost followers.

In order to remove followers by blocking them:

Go to your profile and tap on the burger menu.
Open the Settings.
Tap on Privacy.
Scroll down and look for the Blocked Account option.

Blocked accounts on Instagram Preferences

Now, you’ll have to:

Tap the plus button on the top right of the screen
Tap the “block button” on the user’s list you’ll see, or look for a specific user using the search box.
Decide if you want to block only that specific account or other extra ones they might create (better).

That’s all, the account is now blocked, so it will disappear from your follower list.

How to remove fake or ghost followers on Instagram

If you’d like to know how to get rid of bots on Instagram, this is what you have to do.

Again, go to your Instagram profile, but this time, tap on the Followers count.
Scroll down looking for suspicious accounts, but instead of just pushing “remove”, tap in their picture to check their profile.
Once you are sure that you are in front of a ghost account or a fake one (like in the example, several followings but no content at all), tap on the three dots menu button ···.
Within the menu that will appear, tap on the “Remove Follower Button”.
Confirm the action and that’s it, the follower will be automatically removed from your account.

As you can see, very easy once you know how to spot the fake and ghost accounts on your profile.

How to remove ALL followers on Instagram – Is there a way to mass-delete your followers?

What happens if you want to remove all your followers instead of a couple of them? Or if you want to remove followers quickly and in an easy way?

Currently, it’s not possible to remove multiple followers on Instagram other than manually.

Deleting followers in bulk is not something Instagram offers.

It’s true that you’ll find many apps that claim they are able to automatically remove fake Instagram followers, delete all followers on Instagram, or delete multiple followers on Instagram at once.

But those apps tend to disappear as they are usually a scam that will try to trick you into paying tens (sometimes hundreds) of dollars in order to allow you to mass remove followers.

It’s not worth the money or the risk to give your credentials to third-party applications.

FAQs on deleting Instagram followers

I accidentally removed a follower on Instagram

If you accidentally removed followers on Instagram, there is no way of undoing the action, so you’ll need to send them a DM telling them what happened, and asking them to follow you back.

How many Instagram followers can I delete per day?

There is no official answer about how many followers you can delete on Instagram within 24 hours.

However, to avoid Spam and Bots looking for follow-back, all social networks usually have daily action limits, although they are usually quite high and are not annoying for normal use.

And if you reach them, you will be notified and just have to wait.

Can you remove a follower on Instagram without blocking them?

As you have seen: yes.

Removing followers is totally different than blocking them, but be aware that in any case, they will notice once they visit your profile again.

How to remove followers on Instagram