Meta, previously called Facebook, has built generational products to help us socialize digitally. However, these products have often come under fire for the lack of user privacy. Therefore, if you strive to keep your personal information away from these websites, one way to do it is to unsync contacts from the Instagram app.
In this article, we’ll provide step-by-step instructions to disconnect your contact list from Instagram. On your mobile device, you can only disconnect and turn off sync for contacts, but on the Instagram web, you can delete all the previously synced contacts as well.
But before we get there, let us understand what happens when you unsync contacts from Instagram.
Also Read: How to remove phone number from Instagram.
What Happens When You Turn off Contact Sync on Instagram
When users add phone numbers to their Instagram accounts, they can be discovered from the phone number. If you have these contacts saved on your device, you can sync them to Instagram. Instagram uses the contacts synced from your device to suggest users you can follow.
Therefore, once you unsync the contacts on Instagram, you can no longer see suggestions based on your contacts. However, the process takes up to 90 days, and you may still see a few contact-based suggestions while Instagram removes the synced contacts.
With that out of the way, let’s show you how to disconnect and remove synced contacts from your Instagram account.
How to Disconnect Contacts From Instagram
When you sync contacts on your Instagram account, it uploads all the locally saved contacts from your device to the platform. Therefore, to disconnect contacts from your Instagram account, manually disable the toggle for uploading contacts on every smartphone logged in to your Instagram account. Here’s how:
Note: You can’t stop contacts from syncing using Instagram’s website.
Step 1: Open the Instagram app.
Step 2: Go to your profile from the bottom navigation bar and tap on the hamburger icon in the top right corner.
Step 3: Select ‘Settings and Privacy’.
Step 4: Tap on Accounts Center.
Step 5: Tap on ‘Your information and permissions’.
Step 5: Tap on Upload contacts.
Step 6: Select your Instagram account.
Step 7: Turn off the toggle for Connect Contacts.
However, turning off this toggle does not delete any previously synced contacts. It only prevents new contacts from syncing on Instagram. If you want to delete previously synced contacts, you can do it on the Instagram web app, and here’s how you can do it.
How to Delete All Synced Contacts on Instagram
Instagram web shows you the number of contacts synced and lets you delete them in one go. Here’s how to do it.
Step 1: Open and log in to your Instagram account on a web browser.
Step 2: Click on the hamburger icon in the bottom left corner and click on Settings.
Step 3: Click on ‘See more in Accounts Center’.
Step 4: Click on ‘Your information and permissions’.
Step 5: Select Manage Contacts
Step 6: Click on Delete to remove all the synced contacts.
Step 7: Select Delete again to confirm.
Bonus: Disable Permissions for Instagram to Use Your Contacts
If you want to take a step further and ensure that Instagram does not get to touch any contacts on your device, you can deny permission to do so. Here’s how you can turn off contact access for Instagram on your smartphone.
On iPhone
Step 1: Open the Settings app.
Step 2: Select Instagram.
Step 3: Turn off the toggle for Contacts.
On Android
Step 1: Open the Settings app and select Apps.
Step 2: Tap on Instagram.
Step 3: Select Permissions.
Step 4: Tap on Contacts.
Step 5: Tap on Don’t Allow.
That is everything you need to know on how to unsync contacts on Instagram. If you have any further questions, look at the FAQ section below.
FAQs on Instagram Contact Sync
1. Is it mandatory to sync contacts on Instagram?
No. Syncing contacts is not compulsory on Instagram.
2. Is it mandatory to enter your phone number on Instagram?
No. However, it is compulsory to have your email address if you remove your phone number from your account.
3. Why am I unable to see all synced contacts on Instagram?
You can only see all the contacts that are synced to your account on the Instagram web app. The same isn’t possible via the mobile app.
Stop Contacts From Syncing
We hope this article helps you unsync contacts on Instagram. However, we wish Meta to add more privacy controls in the future so that one can safeguard their information and add information they wish to provide to Instagram.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
