Close Friends List On Instagram

Being a close friend of someone or having someone as a close friend is no less than a blessing. Being a close friend of someone means they consider you a part of their inner circle, and they do not hesitate in sharing the ups and downs of their life with you. Having a close friend or being a close friend of someone is a real-life privilege and it means that you share some similar life goals and values. Close friends are the people who have been with you through thick and thin and know the most about you and your life.

But with the induction of social media, the dynamics may have changed, but the idea of close friends, or sharing a safe space with individuals whom you trust and care about is still alive. While it is true that most of the apps do care about user privacy and safe space, Instagram goes an extra mile in this regard. The app offers a feature that goes by the name Close Friends which lets you single out people whom you trust from the rest of the public. Previously, if you published a story on Instagram, the story would be visible to everyone. You had to hide it every time by using the app’s privacy settings. This means you have to blacklist people from your stories if you don’t wish for them to see your stories. To cater to this problem, Instagram offers a feature that lets you create a whitelist for your stories. In simpler words, it lets you share stories with selected people who can be your close friends. Also, this feature is available for both Android and iOS. Let’s get a  deeper understanding of how the feature works.

Close friends is a special list of Instagram followers which allows exclusive viewing permissions. Also, this feature is available for both personal and business profiles. Just like any other feature, one needs to have a deeper understanding of the feature to get the most out of it.

How It Works:

The feature comes with default generated list, which usually has zero followers. But you can add or remove them as much as you like. This leads us to our next question.

How To Add People To Close Friend’s List In Instagram

To add people to a close friends list on Instagram, you need to follow the following steps.

• Launch the app and go to the app screen. From here on, tap on the three-bar icons present at the top right corner.
• Once you tap it, select close friends from the list.
• From the close friends’ list screen, use the search option to find people which you intend to add to this list. Then click on the add button which is located next to their name.
• The app also provides auto-generated suggestions which you may also use.
• Once you are done with adding people, simply tap the done button.

Now, what you need to realize is that the close friends feature is not some permanent list that cannot be edited later on. You may add or remove people anytime which leads us to our next question.

How to edit a close friend’s list In Instagram

• Click the three-bar menu at the top corner of your screen and tap the close friends’ list option.
• Click on the remove button, located right next to the person you may want to remove from the close friend’s list.

Once you do it, you may get worried that the person might get notified about the removal from a close friend’s list. Well thankfully, the app doesn’t send notifications to the person.

Who Has Seen Your Stories On Instagram

Also, this feature is entirely at the disposal of the individual owning the account. No one can request the account owner to add them to a close friends list. The only thing they can do is to personally message them and request them to get added to a close friends list. Also, just like other stories, the close friends feature lets you view who has seen your stories on Instagram.

Now, one may ask if the app protects your privacy or it lets other people know of your list of close friends list. Well, the app makes sure that no one can see whom you have added to the list. Even the members on the existing list cannot be aware of other members who are part of the same list.

Also, creating a story for your close friends is as simple as it can be. Simply press the story icon, and once you have uploaded it, click on send options. Then tap on the close friend’s option in the green. This way only your close friends will be able to see the story.

Now, coming to our main question, how to know if you are on someone’s close friend’s list? Well, there is no direct way of knowing that. This is because Instagram doesn’t send notifications to its users that they are on a close friends list. Only if a person adds a story to a close friends list, only then you will be able to know whether you are on the list or not.

Also, if you want to remove yourself from a close friends list, there isn’t much you can do about it. You cannot remove yourself from anyone’s close friend’s list. But, there is one thing you can do. You Can simply mute this person’s stories if you don’t want to see their stories. But doing so, you will mute both the regular and close friends’ stories. To mute someone’s story, you can simply long-press the story icon, and then proceed to press mute

Having said all that, one should realize that the app is aware of the fact that not everyone needs to know everything. One may think of restricting its profile to private but this does not help every time. This is where this close friends feature comes to the rescue and lets you share the stories with friends you want to see.

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