7 Ways to Remove Instagram Shadowban

Let me start by saying that the Instagram shadowban can happen to anyone. It makes our accounts invisible to everyone, except your current followers.

The length of an Instagram shadowban varies. It could be anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks (and some people months).

Based on our research and what people have reported all over the Internet, this article summarizes what helps remove the Instagram shadowban within a couple of days.

If you’re new to our blog, make sure you also read this blog post:
How to Avoid Instagram Shadowban: 4 Crucial Tricks

If Instagram has deleted your photos or your account, read this:
“Instagram deleted my photos”, “My Account Disappeared”: What’s happening?

Check if your account is shadowbanned

First, are you sure you have been banned?

There is only one true test you can do. And you need to do it yourself, manually.

Take the test: How to Check if your Account Has Been Shadowbanned by Instagram

Note: Do not use any external tools to test if you have been shadowbanned.
They are not 100% reliable.

We have analyzed them from a technological perspective. We have done the test ourselves and built our own Instagram shadowban tester to compare the results. We can confidently tell you that the results of these external tools are not reliable. They are a well-timed marketing stunt.

If you have seen a dramatic drop in likes – all of a sudden – there is a high chance your account has been affected.

Then again, do the test yourself (click here).

How to remove Instagram shadowban?

Here are 7 tricks to remove the Instagram shadowban and be unbanned.

1. Backoff from posting for a couple of days

Go cold turkey. Lay low and hope the ban gets lifted. Some people have stopped using Instagram for over 3 days (or more). Their ban was lifted after that. It almost seems like a “reset button” for your account.

2. Delete all hashtags from your recent posts

Instagram stated that there seems to be a “hashtag glitch”. It could be true, but we are not so sure about it.

Like I said in my previous article, some hashtags are being blocked or banned by Instagram. Some hashtags are simply inappropriate, and others are innocent but have been spammed with inappropriate photos. They have subsequently been blocked by Instagram (temporarily or indefinitely).

Remove hashtags from your recent posts. This trick worked well for a lot of people and it seems to be the fastest way to remove the Instagram shadowban.

People have also reported that not using the same hashtags over and over again helps. It signals to Instagram you are an active user and not a bot.

3. Put your hashtags in the caption (not in the comments)

This trick seems to have worked for a lot of people too. If you test it, let everyone know in the comments if it made a difference for you.

People reported that when they put their hashtags in the comments, their post was shadowbanned after 1 – 2 hours.

Putting hashtags in the caption can make it bulky. To keep your caption clean, use 5 (or more) full stops, bullet points or any other means to separate your caption from your hashtags. For example:

This is a beautiful day ????????
.
.
.
.
.
#beautiful #day #sun #outdoors #earthpix #nature

4. Don’t use too many hashtags

I’ve always said it: each hashtag is an opportunity to get in front of the eyeballs of the right people. I consider hashtags as free advertising. So I am a firm believer in using all 30 hashtags Instagram allows us to use in one post.

However some people have reported that the ban was lifted after following this pattern:

• Remove hashtags from old posts,
• Put hashtags in caption for a new post, and
• Use less than 30 hashtags

5. Contact Instagram

Getting in touch with Instagram is hard. But it doesn’t hurt to try. Some people got unbanned reporting the problem.

Here is how to contact Instagram (4 ways):

• Open the Instagram app and shake your phone: This will activate the “Instagram Rage Shake” (a big thank you to Kat Gaskin for the tip). Warning: not all phones have this feature.
• “Report a Problem” to Instagram through the app: This is the simplest and most recommended way to contact Instagram. A few people have been very lucky and unbanned after they reported the issue (… after contacting Instagram every day until it was fixed):
  • Go in the Instagram Settings
  • Select “Report a Problem”
  • Select “Something isn’t working”.
• Go on Facebook and search for Instagram (App page) and select “Send a Message”.
• Send an email at [email protected].

And tell them:

“I am not being shown in the hashtags I’ve used for my post”.

Do not say you have been “shadowbanned”.

Some people (not a whole lot) got a response fairly quickly from Instagram.

Other people tell Instagram they have been “hacked“. If you do your research all over the Internet, this trick seems to have been very efficient to remove the Instagram shadowban. However, David does not recommend you use the “hacking” card as your message will be forwarded to a completely different support department that won’t be able to help.

Our advice: Do anything in your power to remove the shadowban.

6. Do not switch to a business profile

Now, this is a big topic in itself. There are many diverging views on this topic among the Instagram community. I will give you our thoughts on it.

When you switch to a business profile you signal to Instagram that you are a business. Businesses are the bread and butter of Instagram (and its parent company, Facebook). Remember when Facebook made pages’ organic search nonexistent in 2007?

Déjà vu?

It is only natural that Instagram will want you to pay to get more engagement (likes, views, clicks). Why would you get all the perks of a business account (Instagram analytics & all) for free? Think about it.
In fact, we have heard that many people have experienced a loss of engagement after switching to a business profile (read the comments section in Alex Tooby’s article). Of course it doesn’t apply to everyone. It is still possible to rock your business page but it might take more time to gain traction.

7. Switch back to a personal profile, but…

Make sure you also unlink your Instagram profile from your Facebook page. The two go hand-in-hand. We cannot assure this trick will help, but it is a logical step to take since Facebook pages = source of advertising revenue of Facebook (and Instagram).

To sum up

These are the 7 best ways to remove Instagram shadowban at the moment:

1. Backoff from posting for a couple of days
2. Delete all hashtags from recent posts
3. Put your hashtags in your caption (not in the comments)
4. Don’t use all 30 hashtags
5. Contact Instagram
6. Do not switch to a business profile
7. Switch back to a personal profile

If you have been unbanned, leave a comment below and let everybody know what worked for you. How long did it take to remove the shadowban?

We will keep you updated when we find out more information.

Until next time, see you all on Instagram (@preview.app) for more tips & tricks.