When You Hide Likes On IG, Here’s How People Can Still Show Your Posts Love

Instagram recently released a huge update — the ability to hide like counts on your posts — and it gives users so many more options. There’s long been talk of nixing likes from the app altogether, but this update isn’t a total obliteration of the double-tap. You can even implement hidden like counts on a post-by-post basis. With the new options, though, you might wonder if people can still like your Instagram posts if you hide like counts. It’s actually pretty simple.

The main thing to know about the ability to hide like counts on Instagram is that it’s optional, so you can keep it as is if you want. If you do want to try it out, there are a couple of different ways to hide likes. The first is to hide likes on your posts, which you can do on a post-by-post basis before uploading. To change a post that’s already live, you’ll need to tap the three dots icon for post settings and choose “Hide Like Count.”

If you choose to hide the like count on your Instagram post, it doesn’t remove the like function for people viewing your posts. People who see your post can still tap like — you (and they) just won’t see how many likes the post has gotten. Even if viewers can’t see the like count on your post, they will still be able to tap like. So, yes, if you hide like counts, people can still hype all your fire posts.

When you hide like counts on a post, you’ll have a small insight into who has liked your post, which shows up in the same post banner IG has featured for a while. The banner won’t include like counts, so all you’ll see is a few profile pictures of users that have liked your post and a “liked by [user’s name] and others” tag. The username you’ll see will be someone you interact with on the ‘Gram the most, per the company.

To hide like counts for all posts you see in your feed, you’ll need to go to the new “Posts” section in Settings and toggle the option on. After you hide likes for all posts, you’ll notice the like counts in your feed have disappeared. Plus, if you stumble upon a new account you like or scroll someone’s profile, those like counts will also be hidden. Although you can turn off like counts for all other users’ posts, your posts, or both at once, you won’t be able to choose individual users to turn off like counts for.

Now that you know people can still like your Instagram posts if you hide your like counts, you can enjoy all of your ~options~.