If You're Reading This, You've Probably Been Blocked on Instagram (Sorry)

Sometimes your Instagram feed needs a bit of a refresh. Maybe it's clogged up with too many people you went to high school with getting married and starting families. Or maybe you've just noticed that your 7th-grade ex-boyfriend has liked every single one of your posts for the last year and started fire reacting to all of your stories.

Whatever the reason, the block button on Instagram is free, and you don't need to have a good reason to block another user other than that you want to.

That being said, it sometimes hurts to find out that you've been blocked by someone you thought was close. Hopefully, you're not the creepy ex stalking another's posts.

But how do you know if the person you think blocked you actually banned you from ever seeing their profile again? Well, there isn't an exact answer, but there are a couple of methods to figure out whether or not you've been blocked.

Unlike Twitter, which gives you a handy note on someone's profile notifying you that you've been blocked, Instagram doesn't tell you if you've been blocked by another user. Instead, their profile will disappear completely, leaving you without a way to access their account again.

The first step is to check your "Following" list. Search for the person or username there. If they don't come up, it's possible they've just removed you as a follower instead of blocking you.

Next, go to the search bar and type in that person's username. If it comes up, but you're no longer following the account, then you've only been removed as a follower and not blocked. You can request to follow the account again — though before you do, you should consider why the person may not want you to follow them if they went through the trouble of removing you.

If the account doesn't come up, then it's possible you were blocked or the account was deleted.

You can check if the account is still active by opening a private browser and going to instagram.com/username (insert the username of the person in question in the URL). If the profile comes up while not logged in, then you've unfortunately been blocked.

There are a variety of third-party apps available on the app store that will also track who has blocked you, though they won't notify you retroactively of accounts that have you blocked.

That being said, these apps aren't supported by Instagram, so they may not be 100 percent accurate. If you really need to know when one of your followers has decided to block you, though, this is an option to always keep up on it.

Once you've been blocked, there's not really much you can do. It's entirely up to the other user to unblock you — and we don't recommend reaching out to ask them to do so. (Seriously, don't do that. It's weird.)

While it may hurt your feelings to learn that you've been blocked from someone's Instagram, take it as a sign to move on and build better connections with other people who won't block you online.