Instagram started out as a simple photo-sharing social network. Nowadays, it’s—not that. Suggested accounts, promoted posts, Reels, and ads have gotten in the way of the people and accounts you signed up to see. Let’s fix that.
By default, the Instagram Feed uses an algorithm to show you posts it thinks you want to see. At least that’s the idea. In reality, it’s designed to keep you in the app as long as possible.
Opening the app and quickly leaving after seeing a couple of recent posts from your friends doesn’t move the needle. So Instagram injects a bunch of other stuff and makes it difficult to know if you’re up to date on what your friends have been posting.
Thankfully, there’s still a way to view only the people and accounts you follow in a chronological feed if you know where to look.
Instagram actually gives you three different feeds to choose from. There’s the default algorithmic feed, a “Following” feed, and a “Favorites” feed. The “Following” feed will show you only the people and accounts you’re following, and in chronological order without ads.
To see it, open the Instagram app for iPhone or Android and tap the Instagram logo in the top left corner on the home tab . There’s no indication that tapping this will do anything until you scroll down the page a bit, but you can do this at any time.
A menu will appear with the two aforementioned feed types—select “Following.”
That’s all there is to it! You will not only see the accounts you follow. The “Favorites” feed works the same way, but it’s only accounts you’ve favorited.
This is a nice little trick, but it’s not perfect. Unfortunately, Instagram treats the “Following” feed as a secondary feed. The app will always default to the primary algorithmic feed when you open the app after you’ve been away for a while. There’s no way to permanently switch to the “Following” feed. Though it may not be perfect, it’s still much better than nothing. You can use other tricks to avoid ads in other places as well.