On Instagram, you can follow your friends and family, or people you admire. If their account is private, then you’ll have to send them a follow request. When someone puts their account on private, they don’t want random people following them – this allows them to choose who their followers are by declining or accepting the follow request.
When an account isn’t private, this means anyone can follow the account – this is usually for people who want to group their account and don’t mind receiving new followers. Accounts that go private want to restrict people that follow them.
A lot of spam accounts can follow you if you’re not private and this can bring down your engagement because they tend to not with your post a lot.
When you want to follow someone, you have to send a request, and this will get sent to their request folder in their notifications. If you’ve followed someone and you’re not sure whether your request has been declined, here’s how you can tell.
How to Know If Someone Declined Your Follow Request on Instagram
Users must visit the profile of the person they followed to determine if they have yet to accept their follow request or have opted to ignore it. When you visit the user’s profile, a “Requested” button should appear, indicating that the user either disregarded your request or is too busy to verify who has followed them previously.
It’s important to note that requests to follow are only sent to users who have chosen to keep their Instagram profile “private” rather than public. This feature is intended to prevent undesirable individuals from spying on users’ accounts by denying them access to their Stories and their media postings.
If you don’t want to request them to see their profile, you can view a private Instagram account without requesting them by using various methods such as viewing their account from a friend’s profile or creating a fake profile to view their account from.
1. Requested Will Change To Following If Declined
If someone declines your follow request on Instagram, when you visit their profile, instead of seeing requested, or following, you’ll see Follow. The request will go back to follow when they have declined your follow request.
When someone declines your request, then you can choose to follow them again, but chances are that they’ll decline your request again.
If they accept your request, the request will change to Following – from here, you’ll be able to view their posts and engage with them. There’s no way to view a private account without them accepting your follow request.
2. Ask Them
Most of the people we request to follow on Instagram know. Celebrities often leave their accounts open, meaning you don’t need to ask to follow them; their posts are available to everyone to see.
When sending a request to follow someone, you are not expecting that they will decline your request, which is why it can be shocking to see that your request is being ignored or rejected.
If you have a means of communicating with the person that declined your request, you can always ask them if they saw it.
Be careful not to sound confrontational when you ask them about your request. Casually bring it up in a conversation and mention that you had sent a request on Instagram, and you are wondering if they have seen it.
If they try to change the topic, that can be their way of politely letting you know that they saw the request and ignored it or declined the request.
3. Follow Them Again and See If They Decline
Instagram has rules that regulate how many people you can follow at a given time. To avoid spamming, if you request to follow many people simultaneously, some of your requests will not go through.
Instagram will believe you are misusing the following feature and will disable it for a few hours as a result. It may lead to you thinking that the person you wanted to follow declined your request when they never even saw the request to follow their account.
It is also common for people to decline requests to follow their accounts by mistake.
To ensure that the person refused your request to follow their account on purpose, you can request to follow them again and see if they decline. If they reject your request for the second time, you know that they do not want you to follow them.
Please do not attempt to request to follow them for the third time, as they will end up blocking your account. Having your request rejected two times indicates that they do not want you to see what they post.
4. They Have Responded to Your DM Request
If you sent them a DM while your request was pending, if they have declined your follow request, chances are they would have declined your dm request too which is usually indicated by a declined to follow request and no response.
Does Instagram Notify You If They Decline Your Request?
Consider the following scenario: your young cousin has recently joined Instagram, and you have followed to request. Because your little cousin doesn’t want you to see what they post on their Instagram, they decide not to accept your follow request.
Once your cousin decides that they do not want you to follow them and decline your request, you will not receive a notification that your request got rejected.
Instagram takes the privacy of its users extremely seriously and will never do anything that might jeopardize their privacy in any way. Therefore, when you reject someone’s “follow” request on the platform, they will not receive any communication from the Instagram Team regarding your decision to do so.
However, just because Instagram does not send out notifications about it does not imply that people will not learn about it at all.
When people send requests to follow an account, they will constantly visit to check if their request has been accepted. Even if they do not receive a notification that the request has been declined, if they continue verifying and the “requesting” button changes, they will know the request got rejected.
What happens if someone rejects your follow request on instagram
When you request to follow someone on Instagram, they will receive a notification that you have asked to follow them on Instagram.
Once they receive your request, they have the option to allow, decline, or ignore your follow request. If someone decides to decline your request, Instagram will not notify them that their request got denied.
When you request to follow someone while the person decides whether to accept your request or not when you view their profile, the only thing you will be able to see is the “requesting” button.
If the person decides to decline your request, the “requesting” button returns to “follow.” The “requesting” change to “follow” often lets people know that their request to follow has been declined.
If you don’t want the person that requested you to see that you don’t want them to follow, you can block the individual so that your profile is not visible to their account or hold off on responding to the request, neither accepting nor rejecting it.
How Long Does It Take For Someone to Accept Your Follow Request on Instagram?
If the person you request to follow has their notifications switched on, the request to follow their account will be displayed on their phone even when they are not on the app. If their notifications are switched off, they will see the request to follow their account once they use the app.
It is up to the person to decide whether they accept the request immediately or ignore the request to follow them. Once they accept your request, you will immediately see what they share with their followers.
If they ignore your request, you will be stuck on the requesting stage. It will go on for as long as your request gets ignored by the person you want to follow. It can go for years unless you decide to cancel the request to follow the account manually.
Reason Why You Get Declined
If you’ve been declined, then chances are that they don’t know who you are. People put their accounts on private being they don’t want certain types of accounts following or people they don’t know. If you’re trying to follow someone you don’t know, then they’re likely to decline your request.
If your account Is public and they can see your posts, they can decline you because they don’t like the type of content that you post. If you want them to accept you, you can either make your account more appealing or go on private so they’re curious to see who you are.
Another reason why your request may get declined is if because your account looks like a spam account. When your account looks like a spam account, for example, you have no pictures, your followers to following ratio are off, then chances are that people are going to decline your request.
Tip: If they’re following people that follow you, then they’re more likely to accept your request because it won’t appear like you’re a total stranger. You can follow people that they’re following in the hopes that they follow you back – once they see that you’re followed by people they follow, then they’re more likely to accept your request.
Concluding Thoughts
Those who use Instagram regularly tend to forget that half of the individuals who have profiles on the platform don’t consistently log in. It might be challenging to envision somebody staying away for more than a few days at a time.
However, it is possible. However, as it turns out, some people only visit the site once every week, or even once a month. Aside from that, individuals do take holidays to locations with limited Internet connectivity.
If you see that your request to follow someone hasn’t gotten accepted, it does not mean that you are ignored. The person you are requesting to follow may not have accessed their account since you asked to follow them.