Here’s how you can finally get rid of those super annoying Instagram ‘activity bubbles’
You can also stop yours from coming up too
If your Instagram feed has started to feel more cluttered than calming, you’re not alone. Those floating ‘activity bubbles’, aka the little profile icons showing who’s liked or shared a post, can quickly turn a casual scroll into a visual overload. They bounce around the post, usually on Reels.
The good news is that Instagram has quietly rolled out a setting that lets you switch them off completely.
If you want a cleaner, distraction-free experience, here’s how to turn off those floating heads.
- Head to your Settings
- Scroll down to Content Preferences and select it.
- Turn on ‘Hide all activity bubbles in feed and reels’.
Once enabled, those floating icons will disappear from both your main feed and Reels, making everything feel a lot less busy.
If you’re not ready to commit to the full switch-off, there are also temporary fixes. You can simply swipe down on the bubbles to hide them in the moment, or pinch outward on your screen to remove overlays altogether. It’s not permanent, but it does the job when things get too crowded.
While you’re in your settings, there’s another privacy tweak worth knowing about. Instagram can show your mutuals what posts you’ve liked or interacted with, something not everyone realises is happening (trust me, by seeing what some people publicly like, you know they don’t know).
To change this, go to Settings and activity, scroll to ‘Activity in Friends tab’, and choose whether you want your likes and comments on Reels visible to mutual followers. Turning this off means your activity stays private.
It’s a simple way to make Instagram feel a bit more like your own space again, and a lot less like everyone else is watching you scroll.
For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.
Featured image credit: Instagram
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