We live in a world where our lives revolve around social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Facebook etc. According to various studies, Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms. We all use Instagram every day and have attempted to make new connections through it. But have you ever wondered what mutual means on Instagram? If not, don’t worry, here we will help you to understand what mutual means on Instagram.
Quick Takeaways
- A mutual friend is someone who is a common friend of two different Instagram users.
- Mutual is an important feature as it will help you to know who are the common friends between you and the other person and will also help you to increase your network.
- Checking your mutual friends is very easy, all you have to do is to search for the person’s username and get the list of the mutual friends of that person.
However, you must read till the end so to understand what mutual means on Instagram and know how can you look for mutual friends.

What does Mutual mean on Instagram?
Mutual in general means something in common. On Instagram, mutual means that two users have common friends on the platform. In Simple words, a mutual friend is someone who is a common friend of two Instagram users. You cannot allow any stranger or any unknown to follow you on Instagram, and would always check if you and they have any mutual friends or not. If you see mutual, you would find it easy to connect with them and might share some common interests.
Why is mutual an important feature?

It is an excellent method of expanding your Instagram network and helps you to know whether or not you are interested in following a particular account. Having a lot of mutuals indicates that you have common interests and that you might wish to interact with them. Further, if you are in doubt about a person, you can directly check their mutual friends to know if you actually know them or not.
How to check mutuals on Instagram?
The reason why Instagram is popular is that it gives an easy user interface. When looking for mutuals on Instagram, we must know with whom we are looking for the mutuals. It is very easy to check who is mutual with a person whom we want to follow. Here are the two ways to check the mutuals on Instagram:
Through the app
- Log in to your Instagram profile on the app.
- On the search bar, search for the user with whom you are looking for the mutuals.
- When you will see their profile, just click on their profile.
- After you open their profile, click on either the follower’s option or the following option. Once done, you will see a “Mutual” option.
- Click on it and you will see the mutual users. Always remember that it can only be done if the user has an open account.
- On the other hand, if it is a private account, then you will see a list like “followed by this or that person” below the person’s profile.
- Tap on it and you will see the names of the people who are following them.
Through the Instagram web version
- The steps to check mutuals on the Instagram web version are almost the same-
- You will have to start by logging into the website with your account.
- Now in the search option, you will need to search the name of the person you want to get the mutuals of.
- Again you will see a list like “followed by this or that person” below the person’s profile.
- Just click on it and you will see the name of the people who follows you and that particular person as well.
Can you turn off the mutual feature on Instagram?
Unfortunately, there are certain things that Instagram does not allow its users to do, and turning their mutuals off is one of them. It does not matter if the profile is private, mutuals are still visible.
The only way you can remove the mutuals is to unfollow the users that are mutual with your particular Instagram connection or block them.

The Instagram algorithm works on analysing and observing users’ preferences and their patterns of using the platform. It observes users’ interests and suggests content that users can mostly relate to. Instagram also knows with whom we interact the most and who we are stalking frequently. The same algorithm is used to rank the mutual. Accounts that we view the most, are always at the top of our mutual list.
Conclusion
Instagram is one such social media platform which we use in our daily life. But are you also one of the people who do not know what mutual means on Instagram? Mutual on Instagram means that you and the other person have common friends on the platform. The mutual feature on Instagram provides a great opportunity to expand your network by knowing about the people we wish to connect with, in a better way. Through the above information, we hope you would be able to explore Instagram with mutual features in a better way.
FAQs
There is no direct way of knowing if Instagram has muted you on Instagram. You can do so by observing that the users who used to interact with you frequently, are no longer doing so.
Yes, you can see mutual friends with a private Instagram account by simply clicking on the account, and mutual will pop up.
The only reason why the profile of a user is not visible is that he/she has blocked you from Instagram. Thus if you are not able to see a mutual connection, the possible reason could be that the mutual friend may have blocked you. Another reason could be that the person has deactivated their profile on Instagram.