How to Know If Someone Restricted You on Instagram

Have you noticed someone has restricted your access to their content on Instagram? Are your comments on their posts not getting as many replies as they used to? This could be a sign that someone has restricted you on Instagram.

Being restricted on Instagram is harder to figure out than being blocked because it doesn’t completely remove your access to someone’s profile. In this article, we will inform you about the signs you can use to determine Instagram restrictions and how you can use the restrictions feature to limit people’s access to your own content.

What Happens When Someone Restricts You on Instagram?

Instagram’s Restrictions feature is one of the privacy features that allows users to restrict a person’s access to their account. To know if someone has restricted you on Instagram, you first need to understand what this feature does.

In most cases, you won’t even notice if someone restricts you on Instagram. It’s much more subtle than someone blocking you. Mainly because if you are restricted you can still open the user’s Instagram profile and see their content including the user’s posts, stories, reels and comments. You can even like their posts and send them direct messages.

However, there are some things you can’t do or see when it comes to Instagram post comments, messages, and activity status.

Restricted vs Blocked

Getting blocked on Instagram is different from being restricted as it almost completely removes your access to the user’s profile. For example, as a blocked user, if you open the Instagram account of the person who blocked you, you will only see the information at the top of their profile: their profile picture, number of followers and followers, number of posts and their bio.

Unlike a blocked user, the restricted account holder can see all posts, stories and all other content on the page. You can leave new comments on posts and see new and previous comments from other subscribers in the comments section.

As a restricted user, you can also send an Instagram DM (direct message) to the person who restricted you. However, your message will appear as a message request that the person can send block, Extinguishor Accept. They can’t see their activity status or whether or not they’ve received your message. As a blocked user, you cannot send messages to the person who blocked you.

Unlike a block, a restriction doesn’t affect your ability to tag and mention the person who restricted you. You’ll get a notification as usual when you mention or tag them.

How to tell if someone has restricted you on Instagram

As you can see, being restricted on Instagram is difficult to pin down. So how do you know if someone has restricted you on Instagram? There are only three ways to find out.

1. Check the comments section

Instagram first introduced the Restriction feature to reduce cyberbullying. The main function of this feature is to restrict unwanted comments from a user. It won’t look like anything has changed on your side. You can still leave comments on posts as usual. You can also view your comments, but they may be hidden from everyone else.

The user who restricted you will see your new comment behind a restricted comment Message. You can then approve your comment or hide it from everyone else. If they approve your comment, it becomes public, and if they reject it, only you and the user who restricted you can see the comment.

So how can you find out if someone has restricted your comments? Go to this user’s account on Instagram and leave a new comment on their post. Since comments will appear on your primary account as normal anyway, you’ll need to access Instagram with your secondary account. If you don’t have a secondary account on Instagram, you can either create a new account, ask to use a friend’s account, or ask to use a family member’s Instagram account.

Immediately after posting a comment from your main account, check if you can view it from another Instagram account. Make sure you do it immediately, before the user who restricted you can approve it. If your new comment doesn’t appear immediately, your account has been restricted.

2. Try sending a DM

You can also find out if you are restricted or not using Instagram DMs. If someone restricts you, your new Direct Messages to that person will appear in a message requests folder, not in a regular chat. The person who restricted you won’t be notified of new messages and will have to manually approve them to reply to you. On the other hand, you will not be notified if or when the user reads your direct message.

To find out if you’ve been restricted, try sending a DM to the person you think restricted you on Instagram. After sending the DM you just have to wait. If you see that the user is active on their account but doesn’t respond to your message for a long time, it could be a sign that your suspicions were correct and they narrowed you down.

3. Check their activity status

Restricting you removes the ability to see the person’s activity status. That means you can’t see when they were last online or when they last checked their messages.

You can try checking the activity status of the person you suspect has restricted you. Before you can do this, make sure you have the option to view activity status on Instagram. To do this, open the Instagram app, go to your profile page, open the menu and follow the path settings > privacy > activity status. Switch it On to activate the function.

With the activity status feature turned on, you can see when the people you follow and the message were last active on Instagram. Now go back to the person’s profile and see if you can see their last seen status (or their active status if they’re online right now). If you don’t see this information despite recently posting on Instagram, chances are they restricted you.

However, it’s also possible that they have the option to show the activity status as disabled. In this case, you should use another method to check if you have been restricted.

How to Restrict Someone on Instagram

Whether you find out someone restricted you or not, one day you may need to use this feature yourself for someone else. If you want to restrict someone on Instagram, you can do it through Comments, Messages, and Settings. The instructions are the same for iOS and Android users.

How to limit someone in comments

You can restrict someone right in the comments section. To do this, follow the steps below.

1. Open your Instagram post and select Show all comments.
2. Select the comment of the person you want to restrict and either swipe left (iPhone) or press and hold (Android) on it.
3. Choose Exclamation mark icon in the upper right corner.

4. Choose Restrict username limit the person.

How to restrict someone in messages

Another way to restrict a user on Instagram is through messages. To do this, follow the steps below.

1. Open Instagram and go to your chats.
2. Open the chat with the person you want to restrict.
3. Select their name at the top of the chat.
4. Scroll down and select Restrict.

How to restrict someone in settings

You can use the settings menu to restrict someone on Instagram. Here’s how you can do that.

1. Open Instagram and go to your profile page.
2. Choose Three horizontal lines icon in the upper right corner to open Menu.
3. Follow the path settings > privacy > links > Restricted Accounts > Continue.

4. Use the search bar to find the account you want to restrict and select it Restrict next to their username.

How to restrict someone to their profile

If you want to view someone’s profile and restrict their account, you can do it directly on their Instagram page by following the steps below.

1. Open Instagram and find the person you want to restrict.
2. Go to that person’s profile page.
3. Choose Three horizontal lines icon (iPhone) or Three vertical lines icon (Android) to open Menu.
4. Choose Restrict limit their account.

How to Fix Someone Restricting You on Instagram

Finding out for sure if someone has restricted you on Instagram is quite difficult. Also, once they’ve restricted you, there’s not much you can do to regain access to the person’s profile. It is best to contact them personally and try to find a way to solve the problem together.