How to Make Instagram Ad Free
Tired of sponsored posts interrupting your friends' stories and travel photos? You can't remove ads from the official Instagram app entirely, but you can take significant control over what you see and how often you see it. This guide will walk you through the practical, actionable steps to clean up your feed and make your Instagram experience much less cluttered.
Why You See Ads on Instagram in the First Place
Before diving into the fixes, it helps to understand why your feed is full of ads. Instagram, owned by Meta, is a free-to-use platform, and its business model relies on advertising revenue. The platform collects data about your activity - accounts you follow, posts you like, things you search for, and even your activity on other websites and apps - to build a profile of your interests.
The algorithm then uses this profile to show you "sponsored" content it thinks you'll find relevant. These ads are designed to blend in with organic content, appearing seamlessly in your Feed, Stories, Reels, and the Explore page. In short, advertisers pay to reach an audience like you, and Instagram's goal is to make those ads as effective as possible. While this is great for marketers, it can feel intrusive for a casual user. The good news is, you have some say in what data it uses.
Method 1: Fine-Tune Your Ad Preferences in Instagram
The best and safest way to reduce irrelevant ads is to go directly to the source: your Instagram ad settings. This won't eliminate ads, but it will tell Instagram what you don't want to see, making the ads that do appear less annoying and repetitive.
Step-by-Step: How to Change Your Ad Topics
Your ad topics are the interests that Meta thinks you have. By trimming this list, you can stop ads related to topics you don't care about.
Open the Instagram app and go to your profile page.
Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner.
Select Settings and Privacy.
Tap on Accounts Center. This is now the hub for all your Meta accounts (Instagram, Facebook, etc.).
Under "Account Settings," tap on Ad preferences.
Select Ad topics. Here you'll see a list of interests advertisers use to target you.
Go through this list and tap See less on any topic you're not interested in. Don't be surprised if the list is long and oddly specific! Removing topics like "Real Estate Investing" or "Fitness Clothing Brands" tells the algorithm to stop serving you ads from those categories.
Taking a few minutes to clean up this list can have a surprisingly large impact on the quality of ads you see from that point forward.
Hide and Report Ads as You See Them
The algorithm learns from your direct feedback. Hiding individual ads as you scroll is a powerful way to actively train it.
How to Hide an Ad: When you see a sponsored post in your feed or stories, tap the three dots (...) in the top-right corner of the ad. A menu will pop up. Select Hide ad.
Provide Feedback: After you hide it, Instagram will ask why. You'll see options like "It's not relevant," "I see it too often," or "It's inappropriate." Choosing "It's not relevant" is often the most effective feedback to improve future ad showings. If an advertiser is simply spamming you, "I see it too often" is a good choice.
Consistently doing this sends strong signals to Instagram about your preferences. You’ll slowly but surely notice your feed getting more aligned with your actual interests.
Method 2: Curate Your Feed for a Better Flow
While messing with ad settings is direct, you can also change your experience by altering how you use the app itself. The algorithm shows you more of what you engage with, so being more intentional can help.
Use the "Following" and "Favorites" Feeds
Did you know Instagram offers chronological feeds? They still contain ads, but the user-generated content isn't algorithmically sorted, which can make the whole experience feel less commercially driven.
To access them, tap the Instagram logo in the top-left corner of your home screen.
You’ll see two options: Following (a chronological feed of every account you follow) and Favorites (a chronological feed of up to 50 accounts you've specifically added to a list).
Spending more time in these feeds can make your browsing more deliberate. Ads will still be interspersed, but you are in control of the core content you’re seeing, which for many people is a less stressful way to browse.
Audit the Accounts You Follow
Take a closer look at the accounts you follow. If your feed is saturated with mega-influencers, drop-shipping brands, and large commercial pages, you are signaling to the algorithm that you are interested in shopping. While there's nothing wrong with that, intentionally unfollowing or muting accounts that constantly push commercial content can result in your feed becoming more personal and less ad-focused over time.
Method 3: Third-Party Solutions (Proceed with Caution)
A quick search online might point you toward third-party or "modded" Instagram apps that promise a truly ad-free experience. These are modified versions of the official app, typically for Android devices, that block sponsored posts and other features. A common example you might see referenced is Instander.
Warning: Using third-party apps carries significant risks.
Account Security: You are entering your username and password into an unofficial application. Malicious developers could steal your credentials or access your personal data.
Getting Banned: Using a modified app is a direct violation of Instagram's Terms of Service. Meta actively looks for accounts using these apps and may temporarily suspend or permanently ban your account without warning.
No Official Support: These apps can be buggy or stop working when Instagram updates its official app. There is no customer support to help you if something goes wrong.
For these reasons, we do not recommend this method. The convenience of an ad-free feed is not worth risking your account's security and existence.
Using Ad Blockers on a Web Browser
A much safer alternative is to view Instagram on a desktop browser with a trusted ad blocker extension installed, such as uBlock Origin or AdGuard. These extensions are effective at blocking sponsored posts on the Instagram website. While this doesn't help with the mobile app where most people browse, it's a solid, secure option for an ad-free experience at your desk.
Common Question: Can a Meta Verified Subscription Remove Ads?
It's a reasonable assumption: if you pay for a service, do you stop seeing ads? In this case, no. Subscribing to Meta Verified, the paid service that gives you a blue verification badge, does not remove ads from your Instagram or Facebook feeds. The subscription's main benefits are the badge, proactive account protection from impersonation, and access to direct account support. It is not an ad-free subscription service.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, there is no magic switch to make Instagram completely ad-free on the official mobile app. However, by combining a few habits — actively curating your Ad Topics, hiding ads as you see them, and using the chronological feeds — you can significantly improve your browsing experience and make ads far less intrusive.
While clearing out your personal feed is one side of the coin, understanding ad performance is crucial for businesses aiming to grow. For marketers stuck downloading CSVs from Meta Ads Manager just to piece together what’s working, there's a much easier way. At Graphed, we connect directly to your marketing and sales platforms, allowing you to ask questions in plain English like, "Show me my top-performing Instagram campaigns by conversion rate last month" and instantly get back real-time dashboards and reports. It automates away the manual busywork so you can focus on strategy, not spreadsheets.