Instagram Plans Option to Leave Others’ Close Friends Lists

Instagram is working on a feature that would let users remove themselves from someone else’s Close Friends list. The capability remains in early internal development and is not yet being tested publicly. Close Friends, introduced in 2018, allows users to share Stories, Reels, and select posts with a private group rather than their full follower base. Until now, there has been no way for someone added to another user’s list to remove themselves; they could only hide or mute the content.

Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi first identified the prototype through code analysis. A screenshot of the proposed interface shows a warning that leaving the list will prevent the user from viewing that person’s Close Friends content unless re-added. The feature would give individuals greater control over their visibility in others’ private sharing circles, addressing long-standing user requests for more autonomy in social features.

The addition follows similar functionality already available on Snapchat, where users can remove themselves from someone’s private Story list – a comparable selective-sharing tool.

The Close Friends update, if released, would represent a small but meaningful privacy enhancement in a feature that has become widely used for more intimate or selective sharing. It arrives as Instagram continues to refine social controls amid ongoing competition with Snapchat and evolving user expectations around consent, visibility, and boundary-setting in social networking.