There are so many things I love about Instagram – its simplicity, its branding, and its ease of use. But there’s one thing that I really hate about it, and that’s the spam. Fake bot accounts, automated commenting and liking, and being tagged in spam sales posts is endlessly irritating. The more popular the hashtags you use, the more likely you are to attract spambots.

Thankfully, there’s an easy way to stop spam comments appearing on your photos without having to make your account private. Surprisingly few people know about it, so it’s time to spread the word.

How to stop spam on Instagram

1. Open up your Instagram app, and go to ‘Options’ (on Android, it’s via the three dots in the top right of the screen).

2. Scroll down to the link called ‘Comments’:

3. Then you’ll see a box that you can type frequently used spam words into:

4. Hit save, and say bye to Instaspam!

Example Instagram spam list

Here’s my list if you’d like to copy and paste it as a starting point:

free followers
like for like
follow for follow
lyke
follow me
check out
follo me
f0110w
f0llo
f0ll0
f0llow
c00l
like 4 like
follow 4 follow
want followers
check my page
get more followers
get more likes
thxs

Building your Instaspam list

You can include whatever words and phrases you like in your block list, so you could include profanity, which is especially useful if you’re handling a company’s Instagram account, or a family-friendly one.

Be careful you don’t accidentally include words that stop genuine comments. For example, you’ll notice I’ve not included any emojis in my list, because it would mean that any comment that included say a thumbs up emoji, would be blocked from appearing altogether. It’s whole comments containing these phrases, which is why longer phrases are better (you’ll notice I’ve included ‘like for like’, not ‘like’ on its own for this reason).

Spam is always a juggling act, so there’s a thin line between blocking genuine comments and stopping the spammers. They’re just too darn clever. For that reason, you’ll still get occasional spam making its way through, but it’s more likely to be ignorable emoji comments rather than bots trying to sell you fake followers. You can always update your list to add or remove phrases whenever you like to keep on top of it.

Enjoy your less spammy Instagram :)

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