How to Stop 'People you may know Notification' on Instagram

(9 Ways) Turn Off ‘Who You Might Know’ is on Instagram (2023)

by

So, you are getting ‘People you might know‘ or ‘Who you might know is on Instagram’ notifications and want to turn them off?

In this post, we will be discussing how Instagram suggests to you the people you might want to follow. And in doing so, What data does it collect?

Lastly, we will also be mentioning how to turn off ‘who you might know’ on Instagram.

You are not alone who gets and want to stop ‘people you may know’ notifications on Instagram. People often tweet and complain about these annoying notifications.

Below are a few tweets by netizens:

Who you might know is on Instagram meaning:

Short answer: ‘People who you might know is on Instagram’ means that these are the suggestion via Instagram Algorithm that you may know and what to be friend with. Now, these people might be your saved contacts, friends of friends, people near your location, mutual friends, friends from Facebook, etc.

Instagram often sends notifications to people to follow other people they might know.

It is done because Instagram aims to increase ‘Communication and community-building.’

But the main question is from where is Instagram getting such information?

Below we explained how does Instagram does it.

How does Instagram suggest you the people you might know: What Data does it collect?

Have you ever noticed that once you like a random post or comment on Instagram, and then your feed is filled with similar content?

This means that the Instagram algorithm collects our every activity, like what posts we like, what posts we comment on, what type of videos we watch, and more.

As Facebook (Meta) owns Instagram, so it also suggests your friends and mutual friends from Facebook and vice versa.

Instagram also makes use of your contacts to suggest people you might want to follow.

Tracking the search history, Instagram also sends you a notification to follow the people you searched for or visited their profiles multiple times.

Instagram also suggests you follow people from your friends of friends.

Indeed, Instagram collects much more data than this, like websites you visit, your location, the device you use, and more. If you want more details on this, you can visit Instagram’s data policy page.

How to Stop People you may know notification on Instagram :

Sometimes Instagram might suggest to you the right people you actually want to follow. But in most cases those people are irrelevant.

‘People you may know’ notifications and their section on the feed often include people who are friends with your friends, who are present in your contacts on your phone, people whose posts you like but don’t follow them and people from your friends and friends of friends on Facebook.

These suggestion notifications from Instagram can become quite annoying.  In case, you are also having such problems then below are a few ways to rid of them :

  • Make your Instagram account Private.
  • Turn off  ‘Similar account suggestion’ on Instagram.
  • Do not allow Instagram to access your contacts.
  • Do not connect your Facebook to Instagram.
  • Turn off All Notifications from Instagram.
  • Delete unwanted contacts in your contact list
  • Unfollow random people on Instagram

Below all these points are explained in detail.

1. Turn off  ‘Similar account suggestion’ on Instagram

Facebook has a direct setting to turn off the ‘People you may’ notification, but Instagram doesn’t have any such settings.

However, there is one setting on the Instagram web version that will not allow your account to be shown in other’s suggested friends section.  This setting can also help you to reduce or completely stop these suggested friends notifications.

Note: The settings below are not available on the Mobile Application of Instagram. So, you will have to sign in to your Instagram on a web browser.

  • Step 1: Open instagram.com on your browser, either on your PC or on your smartphone.
  • Step 2: Log in to your Instagram account by entering your username and password.
  • Step 3: Click on your profile icon, in the top right corner.
  • Step 4: Now, click on the option ‘Settings‘ from the drop-down menu.
  • Step 5: Here, at the bottom of the page, you can see an option named ‘Similar account suggestion‘

stop people you may know notification instagram unitopten

  • Step 6: So, just uncheck this option to turn off people you may know notifications on Instagram.

Some Reddit users were recently discussing that this setting has helped them stop “People you might know” notifications.

You can check out the thread by clicking on the link below:

How to stop "people you may know" notifications (must be done on web browser) from Instagram

2. Make your Instagram account Private:

You can make your account go private. This will not directly turn off the people who you might know notifications, but it can really help to reduce the number of such notifications you receive.

Below are the settings to make your Instagram account private.

  • From the home page of Instagram, tap on your profile in the bottom right.
  • Now, tap on the hamburger menu in the upper right corner.
  • Now, tap on the settings icon at the bottom right.
  • Here, tap on “Privacy’
  • Here, turn on the ‘Private account’.

3. Do not allow Instagram to access your contacts:

If you have allowed permission to access your contacts on Instagram, it will show you the people present in your contact with whom you are still not a friend on Instagram.

So, follow the steps below to disallow Instagram to access your contacts.

  • Go to the settings of your phone.
  • Now, go to ‘Apps and Notifications.‘

  • Here, find Instagram from the list of apps and click on it.

  • Now, tap on the ‘Permissions’ option present here.

  • Here tap ‘contacts.’

  • In the following menu, choose the option ‘Deny.’

So, that’s all; this is how you can restrict Instagram from accessing your contacts.

Note: These settings will be slightly different depending upon your device.

4. Do not connect your Facebook to Instagram:

Connecting Instagram to Facebook has many benefits like you can share your post on both platforms at a time from any platform. Your DMs of Messenger and Instagram are interconnected, etc.

However, if your main goal is to get rid of the ‘People You may know” suggestions, you should disconnect your Facebook account from Instagram.

Most of the people that Instagram suggests and sends you notifications to follow are those people who you are friends with on Facebook but don’t follow on Instagram.

So, in case you have connected your Facebook to Instagram, then you should disconnect it.

Follow the steps below to unlink your Instagram from Facebook:

  1. Go to your profile and tap on the (Menu) hamburger menu.
  2. Now, Tap on Settings.
  3. Tap on the account, then tap on the linked account.
  4. Tap on Facebook and then tap Unlink Account (iPhone) or Unlink (Android).
  5. To confirm, tap Yes, Unlink.

5. Turn off All Notifications from Instagram:

If you tried all the above ways and still receive a lot of notifications to follow people you might know, then the last option that remains is to turn off all notifications from Instagram.

Follow the steps below to turn off all notifications from Instagram.

  • From the home page of Instagram, tap on your profile in the bottom right.
  • Now, tap on the ‘Hamburger Menu’ in the upper right corner.
  • Now, tap on the ‘Settings icon‘ at the bottom right.
  • Here, tap on ‘Notifications’.
  • Now, turn on the option “Pause All“

Note: This will turn off all your Instagram notifications, including DMs, Likes, comments, stories, etc.

Indeed, this will also finally turn off the annoying ‘PEOPLE YOU MIGHT KNOW’ notifications on Instagram.

6. Delete unwanted contacts in your contact list

As Instagram suggests ‘people you may know’ from your contacts, so would like to get rid of unwanted contacts saved on your phone or Google account.

So, delete the numbers of people from your contact whom you do not want to be friend with.

7. Unfollow random people on Instagram

Most of the people follow a lot of unknown users on Instagram either to increase their followers count or to make new friends.

So, if you have also followed random people on Instagram, you would like to unfollow them to avoid unnecessary suggestions from Instagram.

Limit the people you follow on Instagram to the users you know personally.

8. Disable location permission for Instagram

Turning off location permission on Instagram can help reduce the number of “People You May Know” notifications you receive because Instagram uses your location data to suggest people you might know who are in your area or have visited similar locations.

By disabling location access for Instagram, the app will no longer be able to track your location and suggest people based on that data.

To turn off location permission for Instagram on an iPhone:
  1. Go to your iPhone’s settings.
  2. Scroll down and tap on “Privacy”.
  3. Tap on “Location Services”.
  4. Find Instagram in the list of apps and tap on it.
  5. Tap on “Never” to disable location access for Instagram.
To turn off location permission for Instagram on an Android device:
  1. Go to your Android device’s settings.
  2. Scroll down and tap on “Apps” or “Application Manager”.
  3. Find Instagram in the list of apps and tap on it.
  4. Tap on “Permissions” and click on “Location”
  5. Now, choose, “Deny.”

9. Remove your details from Facebook (educational and private)

If you have connected your Facebook account to Instagram, the data from your Facebook profile may be used to suggest people you might know on Instagram.

In this case, removing your personal information from Facebook could indirectly help reduce the number of “People You May Know” notifications on Instagram.

For example: If you have added which school you went and what college your graduated, etc. This data can be used by Instagram and Facebook to suggest people to you who went to the same school or college.

So, go to your Facebook profile and remove any such details if you do not ‘who might know’ notification on Instagram.

 

Final Words: Turn off ‘People you may know’ Notification on Instagram.

There is no specific setting on Instagram to turn off the People you may know suggestion notifications directly. Still, you can follow the ways above to reduce the frequency of these annoying notifications.

If you are experiencing these notifications on Facebook, you can turn them off by going to the setting -> Notification settings -> People you may know -> turn off.

If Instagram provides a direct button to turn off “People you know” notifications in the future, we will update this post. So, stay tuned.

More Instagram guides:

How to disable messages on Instagram (disable DM)

Fix: Instagram Music “No Results Found” Issue

7 Ways to Fix ‘Unable to Tag Friends on Instagram’

3 Ways to Fix Instagram ‘Your account has been disabled for violating our terms’