Instagram has its ways of connecting people, be it through stories, live, or reels. People can share their daily lives with just a click. Also, let’s be honest we are addicted to seeing stories of our friends and following them daily. 70% of the GenZ generation and 59% of the millennials love watching stories and never leave the sunset circle around anyone’s name in the story bar.
Owing to its popularity Instagram added the close friends feature where people can share their stories only with selected individuals. This helped people in creating a divide between what they wanted to show everyone and what they wanted their close ones to see. Thus adding a personal touch to stories.
Since Instagram tries to protect its users from any unforeseeable harm from other users or its platform, the social media giant regularly adds new features. Hiding Instagram stories from selected followers have also been added and used by many users.
How Does Instagram Hide Story Setting Feature Work
Instagram gives its users the option of hiding their stories from their followers or other users. In case the account is public. The hidden user doesn’t receive any notification regarding this setting and cannot see the story of the other person. This feature is available for specific stories as well as all the stories that the person puts on their account.
The feature helps in securing the user’s private life more and reduces any negative comments. But how would it feel if the user who hid their story was a friend or partner? It would feel like deceit, maybe the friend ditched your art show last minute to go out with someone else, or maybe your partner is hiding something.
But how do you make sure that the user has hidden their story from you and it isn’t some glitch or bot acting weird? Well, here are certain ways to find that out.
How To Find Out Whether You Were Hidden From Someone’s Instagram Story
Instagram stories bring a lot of spice to the app where a user can directly record and upload something for it to disappear within 24 hours. Most of its users use the story feature for posting about some outing. If they want that outing hidden from you, then they would hide their story.
Option 1: Check Story Highlights
If your mutual friend sent you a screenshot of someone’s story talking about it but you can’t find the ombre circle around their profile or any story on their profile at all. Then you might think that
you have been hidden from their Instagram. But before jumping to conclusions do some quick checks.
Search for the person’s Instagram account and see whether you are following them or not. If you then verify if they have put a story that wasn’t visible on your story tray, if you can see their story then everything is good and you should relax but if it isn’t visible even now then look for their story highlights that appear just below their bio. If there is no story highlight then high chances are that you have been removed from their story viewing.
Use Third-Party Software
If you are suspecting that someone has hidden their story from you and don’t want to waste time going through their profile, then the best option is to use a third-party app. But remember that you can use the app only if the user has a public account.
InstaStories is a site that can pull up stories from a public account in seconds without any fear of phishing as it doesn’t require any logging in. But it can’t show the stories that were posted on close friends as they are private in some manner.
These two are the only methods that can be used apart from asking a mutual friend for help, but that would make you look desperate or too clingy.
Stop overthinking about the stories, if someone hid their story from you then it might be because it was more of a personal matter or they don’t want you to know that they took a sick leave for enjoying with their friends. The user might remove you from the hidden story list and allow you to see their stories again.