If you go to your Instagram Explore Page, what do you see? For me, it’s animal pictures, landscapes and random things that I’ve liked a few times over the months. I want to see more engaging content, but it’s not always as easy as just hitting reset.
Why?
Instagram needs signals to know what you like and these signals come from your past interests. I’ll show you exactly how to reset your Instagram Explore Page using tips and tricks that I learned through trial and error.
How to Reset Explore Page on Instagram
You don’t have to feel awkward or hide your phone when you go to the Explore Page anymore once you read through these tips. Resetting the Explore page can take time if you don’t want to do an official reset, so keep this in mind when following these steps.👇
1. Engage With Content That You Love
The reset page is a cumulation of the past actions you’ve taken. For example, if you like a lot of animal posts, your Explore Page will be overrun with them. You’ll also find that if you watch videos in a certain niche a lot or leave comments underneath cat photos often, this signals to Instagram that you like this type of content and will fuel the Explore recommendations you see.
What I recommend that you start doing is this:
- Like any posts that you want to see more of. If you like soccer, go to #soccer and start liking dozens of interesting soccer posts.
- Comment on accounts that upload the type of posts you want to see.
Remember, Instagram’s algorithm runs on the engagement that you have in your account history. You can begin overriding these past data points and show the platform the new type of content that you want to see by liking and commenting on it.
2. Follow More Accounts That Match Your Interests
Along with liking, viewing and commenting on posts that match your interests, you should follow more accounts that you prefer.
Why?
For two reasons:
- Instagram’s algorithm will notice the change in your following behavior and make adjustments to keep you on the platform for longer.
- You’ll see more content you like on the Explore Page and your feeds, so you’ll naturally engage with the posts more often.
Instagram is a reflection of things you’re interested in, so it’s crucial for you to follow accounts that make you open up the app and engage with posts. Otherwise, why use Instagram? Once you start following new people, it’s time to review your content preferences.
3. Review and Update Your Interests
Instagram suggests content that it thinks you’ll enjoy based on your interests. Like any other person, your interests are bound to change over time.
The great news is that you can tell Instagram what you like and don’t like.
Under Settings and activity, you can navigate to Content preferences and start adjusting your settings for:
- Content you’re interested in
- Content you’re not interested in
- Specific words and phrases you want to avoid
- Sensitive content
- Political content
But there’s one important thing to note here: unless you have explicitly marked a post as “interested” or “not interested,” you won’t find any content here.
In this case, you may need to do a hard reset.
4. Do a Hard Reset
If none of the steps above work for you, then a hard reset may be in order. We only recommend this as a last resort because the effects are permanent.
You can perform a hard reset in a few different ways:
- Head over to your Content preferences under Settings and activity. You should see an option to Reset suggested content. This lets you start with a clean slate without changing who you follow.
- Clear all of your recent searches listed under Your Activity. You may need to do this a few times to remove all of your searches.
- Clear the app’s cache and data. You’ll need to log back into your account if you do this.
- Delete and reinstall Instagram. You’ll lose the data Instagram stored on your device, but you’ll have a fresh start.
Of course, you can also just open a new Instagram account and start from square one.
A hard reset is an extreme option, but it may be necessary if you’re really struggling to reset your Explore Page.
How Does Instagram Decide What Goes On Your Explore Page?
If your goal is to reset your Explore Page, then it’s important to know how Instagram decides what to show you.
Instagram is pretty transparent about how they choose posts for Explore. According to them, posts are selected based on several different factors, including:
- The videos and photos you like
- The accounts you follow
- Your connections on Instagram
So, if you want to change what’s shown on your Explore Page, you need to change the posts and accounts you interact with.
Resetting your Explore Page can be tedious, but it’s 100% worth it if you’re seeing content that doesn’t appeal to you. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing, doing a hard reset may be the easiest solution. Otherwise, make a conscious effort to flag posts as “interested” or “not interested” and start liking and following content that you enjoy.
