How To Turn Off Reels on Instagram

In many ways, Instagram Reels is an alternative to the highly controversial and extremely popular short-video sharing app, TikTok. As expected, Instagram is trying its best to promote Reels, incorporating it in the Instagram Explore, forcing everyone to “enjoy” these 15-second video clips.

However, if you happen to be one of the many, many people who aren’t particularly fond of Reels, you’d be happy to see the solutions we’ve listed below. So, without further ado, let’s see how to minimize Instagram Reels exposure.

Can you get rid of Instagram Reels officially?

Instagram Explore is the ideal place to get acquainted with the people outside of your own bubble. You can meet fascinating creators, photographers, life coaches, and even watch a few funny videos if you like. However, for better or worse, the Explore tab (also called Discover tab) has now also become the hotspot for Reels is being used to promote Instagram’s latest offering.

Sadly, there’s no way for you to get rid of Reels, officially, but there’s a method below for Android users at least that works well. However, if you’re really that desperate, you could use a PC or a mobile browser to browse Instagram.com, which — at the time of writing — is still free from Instagram Reels.

In other news, Instagram has rolled out Instagram Reels as a separate tab in India. Due to the creativity it has witnessed in the country, Instagram has made India the first country to get a separate Reels tab. However, they have also assured that the feature is also being tested in other countries and should be rolled out sooner than later.

How to turn off Instagram reels

Instagram Reels is the platform’s latest “innovation” and it’s doing all it can to make it popular. So, as we’ve discussed above, there’s no official way to turn off Instagram Reels. However, if you’re on Android, you could go back to a previous version of the app — before Reels was launched — and that should do the trick.

Here’s a package from July 19th by APK Mirror that should help you get up and running. Now, all you have to do is, turn off auto-update from Google Play. To do so, first, go to Google Play Store, search for “Instagram.” Then, on the Instagram page, tap on the vertical ellipsis at the top-right corner.

Finally, uncheck ‘Enable auto-update.’

How to remove your own Reel?

If you’re not impressed with a Reel you had created or it’s become irrelevant all of a sudden, there’s an option to remove it for good. Once removed, your Reel won’t appear on Instagram Explore and will not have the chance to be one of the featured clips.

To delete a Reel, first, log in to your Instagram account through the mobile app and go to the Reels tab.

Then, tap on the Reel you want to delete. Once there, tap on the vertical ellipsis button.

Now, tap on ‘Delete.’

And confirm it by tapping ‘Delete’ again.

That’s it! Your Reel would cease to exist on Instagram.

How to hide Reels of a particular type?

Coming across similar, annoying Reels? You can hide them with a couple of taps.

Now, tap on the video you wish to hide. Tap on the vertical ellipsis button.

Now, hit ‘Hide.’

After you do, you’ll get a prompt saying “This post has been hidden. We’ll show fewer posts like this from now on.”

You could undo the action by tapping ‘Undo.’

How to turn off Reels on iPhone and iPad

Unlike Android, it’s not very straightforward to load up a previous version of an app. So, if you don’t want to mess about with the required hacks, we’d advise you to stick to basics.

Instagram didn’t give us any nuclear option to disable Reels completely, but luckily, the feature is limited to mobile app only at the moment (as of September 7th, 2020).

So, to view Instagram posts without Reels on your Apple device, just visit Instagram.com on your Chrome or any other browser app on your mobile or PC. Check out the links below: