How to Stop Spam Comments on Instagram

Method 1: Block spam words and spam emojis with Hidden Words

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One list does both jobs. You type the words scammers use, then the emojis they use, and Instagram hides any comment containing either. Most people fill this box with words only, which is why their emoji spam survives it.

1. 1Open Settings and activityOpen Instagram on your phone, go to your profile, and tap the menu icon in the top corner. Tap Settings and activity. This is an account setting, so it happens in the app.
2. 2Find Hidden WordsScroll to the section called How others can interact with you, then tap Hidden Words. If you have hunted for this in Meta Business Suite and found nothing, that is why: Instagram keeps it buried here.
3. 3Turn on Hide comments firstSwitch on Hide comments. This is the step people skip, and skipping it costs them the whole method. Without this toggle, you can build a perfect list and Instagram will keep showing every comment on it.
4. 4Tap Manage custom words and phrasesThis is your list, the one you write and can see. Type your entries with a comma between each one. Any language works, because Instagram is matching the characters you typed rather than understanding them.
5. 5Now paste the emojisInto the same box, alongside the words. 🔥, 👏, 💰, 🚀, and the rest of the bot vocabulary. Instagram treats an emoji as a word here, so a comment that is nothing but six flames now matches your list and disappears the moment it is posted.
6. 6Save, then check what it caughtHidden comments are not deleted, they move out of public view. Open your hidden comments after a day and read them. That is the only way to learn which emojis your real customers use, and pull those back out.

Method 2: Turn on Instagram's own offensive words filter

On the same screen sits a second list, and this one Instagram writes. You cannot see inside it or edit it. It is aimed at abuse rather than spam, so it is worth turning on and worth knowing what it will not do for you.

1. 1Go back to Hidden WordsSame screen as Method 1. Instagram's own filter and your custom list live together, which is why people switch on one and believe they switched on both.
2. 2Switch on the offensive comments filterInstagram starts hiding comments matching a list it maintains, in the languages it maintains it for. You are never shown that list, and it is a list of offensive language, not a list of spam.
3. 3Turn on advanced comment filteringThis reaches past clearly offensive language into comments Instagram judges unwanted, the closest any Instagram setting gets to a spam filter. It also covers your live videos.
4. 4Live with it for a weekCheck your hidden comments before you trust it. Advanced filtering is the setting that quietly hides a happy customer who swore in a compliment.

Method 3: Limits and Restrict, the settings that look at who is commenting

Everything above matches text. These two match people, which is the only other angle Instagram gives you. Limits is for a sudden wave, Restrict is for one account that will not stop.

1. 1Turn on Limits during a waveIn Settings and activity, under How others can interact with you, tap Limit interactions. Instagram built it for pile-ons, but a spam wave has the same shape: a surge from accounts that are not your audience.
2. 2Limit non followers, and recent followers tooBots almost never follow you before they spam you, so the first switch catches most of a wave. The more determined farms follow first, which is what the recent followers switch is for. You pick a duration and Instagram switches it off for you.
3. 3Restrict a repeat spammerSwipe left on their comment and choose Restrict. Their future comments become visible to them and nobody else unless you approve each one, and nothing looks different from their side.

Where Instagram's own settings stop

All four are free and worth turning on. They also share the same ceiling: every one of them is matching something a person had to predict in advance, whether that person is you or somebody at Meta.

• You still have to know which emojis

  The emoji trick works, and it only works on the emojis you thought to type. Bot vocabulary rotates. Next month's wave arrives in whatever shipped in the last update, and your list has never seen it, so it sails through until you notice and go back into your settings.

• The worst spam has real words and no emoji

  "Amazing product, DM me and I will double your money" carries no emoji, no profanity, and nothing your list has ever held. It reads as a compliment to every Instagram filter there is. Your customers read it as a scam, because it is one.

• Instagram's offensive filter is a locked box

  You cannot see what is in it, edit it, or learn why it let something through. It was built for abuse, so it was never going to stop spam, and when it hides something you wanted, your only control is to switch it off everywhere.

• Instagram has no Moderation Assist

  On Facebook you can hide comments by who wrote them: brand new accounts, no profile picture, comments carrying links. That is a Page feature and Instagram has no equivalent. You get word lists, a temporary Limits switch, and Restrict, one person at a time.

• It all lives on a phone, one account at a time

  Hidden Words is a setting inside the app, with no way to copy a list between accounts. Run three and that is the same typing three times, and somebody has to keep all three current. That somebody is usually you, at night.

None of this makes Instagram's settings bad. It makes them what they are: a good way to stop the spam you have already met, on a platform where the spam changes every week.

When it does not work

• Why are emoji comments still showing after I added the emoji?

  Check the Hide comments toggle first, because the list does nothing without it and that is the usual answer. Then check you saved the exact emoji: skin tone variants are different characters, so the yellow clap and a skin tone version are two entries. And the filter only hides comments posted after you saved, so the flood already there stays.

• Why is spam still getting through my Hidden Words list?

  Almost always because the spam has no word on your list. Read what got through instead of guessing: if it says DM me for promo in plain words with nothing banned in them, no list you can write will catch it. That is the ceiling of the method, not a mistake you made.

• Why did Instagram hide a comment I wanted to keep?

  If it was an emoji, you blocked one your customers use, and hearts are the usual culprit. Open your hidden comments, unhide it, and take that emoji off the list. If it was words, suspect advanced comment filtering, or a short word that lives inside longer innocent ones.

• Why do I have to set this up again on my other Instagram account?

  Hidden Words is a per account setting with no way to copy a list between accounts. Every account needs the toggle switched on and the list typed in again. Keep your master list somewhere outside Instagram so you are pasting it rather than remembering it.