Instagram hacks you never knew existed
For a generation that whips out our phones to “IG story” anything and everything including cockroaches on the ground, it’s amazing how much we don’t know about Instagram. Here are 10 Instagram hacks that will make you reconsider how well you actually know the app:
1. Unlock new shades of text in IG stories
If you thought that you were a badass for discovering the second page of text colours on IG story, think again, ‘cause there’s more.
Beyond the basic blue, green, and pink colour options, lies a plethora of undiscovered shades. If you press and hold the colour bubbles, it will reveal an entire colour palette in any hue imaginable.
You can now use colours like turquoise, burgundy, army green, mustard yellow – or even shades that don’t even have a name!
2. Fill your screen with a single colour without colouring everything manually
For all my pensive homies out there who like to post deep or emo quotes onto your IG stories, taking photos of your thumb pressed over your camera is apparently not necessary. There’s a better way to get a black background, folks.
1. Take a photo of anything
2. Go to the colour palette and choose the colour you want to fill your screen with
3. Using the marker tool, press and hold the centre of your screen until it fills up in that colour
3. Zoom into someone while recording them, with one finger
If your IG story camera always goes wonky when you try to zoom using the 2-finger-enlarge-image method, it’s ‘cause Instagram does zoom differently. Here’s how to zoom smoothly on IG story:
1. Press and hold the record button
2. Drag upwards to zoom in
Congrats, you can now capture your friend’s unglam moments in an ultra close up without having your camera go crazy every time you zoom.
4. Hide your unglams by deciding which photos you want to be tagged in
Every Instagram stalker would know that the litmus test to decide whether someone is as chio as the highly photoshopped selfies they post, is browsing through their tagged photos.
That said, some accounts suspiciously only have a handful of tagged photos – this is because you can actually hide tagged photos, just like on Facebook.
1. Go to your tagged photos
2. Click on the 3 dots on the top right hand corner
3. Click “Hide Photos”
4. Select the photos you want to hide
For next-level paranoids, you have the option of vetting the photos you’re tagged in, before the tag even appears on your account.
1. Go to your tagged photos
2. Click on the 3 dots on the top right hand corner
3. Click “Tagging Options”
4. Select “Add Manually”
You’ll now get a notification every time someone posts a photo of you, and you can decide if you want the tag!
5. Clear your search history so people won’t know you’ve been stalking them
It gets pretty awkward when your crush casually uses your phone to show you something on Instagram, and sees their account pop up on the top-searched list.
Just remember to clear your search history next time – it’ll save you a lot of explaining.
1. Settings > Clear Search History
But this only clears your “Recents” list, not your “I’ve been stalking you obsessively Suggested” list. Here’s how you wipe off every single trace of stalking evidence from your account:
1. Press and hold the suggested user
2. Click “Hide”
6. Burn less data while using Instagram
Double tapping photos of #hypebaes suddenly becomes not-so-shiok anymore when you realise you’ve burnt through 1GB of data on Instagram alone.
Not many know that you can actually choose to use less data by changing up your settings:
1. Instagram App Settings > Mobile Data Use
2. Turn on ‘Use Less Data’
However, be prepared to wait longer for photos to load, especially in poor connection places like the MRT or anywhere underground. Videos will not auto-play either – but hey, what’s a little wait time and extra effort for less data burnt?
7. Add line-breaks and formatting to your captions/bio
WordPress link? Check. “W a n d e r l u s t”? Check. Pseudo-deep quote? Check. Now all you need is a line-break forced somewhere into your insta bio to appear more #poetic.
By disallowing line-breaks (in their case, enjambment) within captions, Instagram be cramping the style of many millennial poets out there, who just want to share their 21st century wisdom. There’s another way to do this for captions:
1. Type your caption on your phone’s Notes app, with all the line-breaks you need
2. Copy-paste it into the Insta caption box
8. Get notifications when your crush posts a photo so you can FLFC
From the unsubtle and rather desperate “notice me senpai!” approach, we have now evolved to a more sophisticated “FLFC” system. As creepy as it sounds, you can virtually track your crush’s every move get a notification every time your crush posts a photo. Here’s how:
1. Go to their profile
2. Click on the 3 dots on the top right hand corner
3. Select “Turn on Post Notifications”
9. Hide your Instastory from that one friend you bojio-ed
Whether you’re out getting rekt without wanting your family members to know, or hosting a party without that one friend you “forgot” to invite – the “hide story from one person” function is your lifebuoy. All you need to do is:
1. Go to their profile
2. Click on the 3 dots on the top right hand corner
3. Select “Hide Your Story”
10. Upload iPhone live photos as boomerangs onto IG story
Glam live photos of you fixing your hair or laughing candidly are wasted ‘cause they can’t be posted anywhere – wrong! You can easily post a live photo from an iPhone onto your IG story as a boomerang. It’s this simple:
1. Take a live photo using the iPhone camera app
2. Go to IG story and swipe up to select the live photo
3. Press and hold the centre of your screen until the word BOOMERANG appears
#Insta-hacked
Now that you’ve insta-hacked the system, you have an upper hand in this whole social media game. From never being caught with an unglam again to having people casually slide into your DMs to ask “how did you do that??”, you’re practically gonna own everyone on IG.
Psst…here are some Telegram hacks and iPhone hacks as well!
Know of any other cool Instagram hacks? Share them with us in the comments below!