Instagram's new 'mute' option will give you more control over your feed — here's how it works

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Instagram just added a feature to its photo-sharing app that finally gives users some power to dictate which of the people they follow do (or don't) show up in their feeds.

Starting Tuesday, you can remove specific accounts' posts and stories from your Instagram feed without unfollowing them or even alerting them to what you did. Facebook has given users the option to do that on its own platform for years, and people were thrilled when Snapchat quietly rolled out a similar feature earlier this year — one of the few well-received updates to its app in recent past, actually.

The obvious benefit to a feature like this is the social implication: Instagram users won't risk losing followers or have to go so far as to unfollow a friend because they don't like the frequency of their posts. It can also make for a more consistent feed, giving users the option to exclusively allow posts about fashion, news, or dogs, for example.

Instagram has been experimenting with its algorithm lately, trying to determine the best method to decide who shows up at the top of our feeds and at the beginning of our Stories reel. But — short of deciding who you follow — this is the first update that gives users some amount of control of their own feeds instead.

Here's how to activate Instagram's new Mute feature:

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