Instagram hides comments more often than you'd think. Whether it's an overzealous spam filter, a forgotten keyword blocklist, or a "Restrict" setting you enabled months ago, comments can vanish without warning — and you might not even know they're gone.
Here are four ways to find and unhide them, starting with the most common scenario.
4 Ways to Unhide Comments on Instagram
1. Check for Hidden Comments Directly on the Post
Instagram groups filtered comments under a collapsed section below visible comments.
On mobile:
- Open the post and tap the comment icon
- Scroll to the bottom of the comments
- Look for a "View hidden comments" or "Most relevant" label
- Tap it to reveal filtered comments
- Swipe left on any comment and tap the unhide icon (the eye or undo symbol)
On desktop:
- Go to the post on instagram.com
- Click the comment icon
- If hidden comments exist, you'll see a "View hidden comments" prompt at the bottom
- Click to reveal them
This is the most common fix. Instagram's algorithm filters comments it considers low quality or potentially offensive — even if they're completely harmless.
2. Review Your Hidden Words Settings
Instagram lets you create a custom list of words and phrases that auto-hide comments. If you set this up a while ago, it might be catching comments you didn't intend to filter out.
- Go to Settings → Privacy → Hidden Words
- Check Custom words and phrases — this is your blocklist
- Review the list for words that might appear in normal comments
- Remove overly broad terms
Common culprits: words like "free," "price," "link," "DM," or "buy" often end up on blocklists. These are exactly the words that buying customers use — hiding them means hiding potential sales.
3. Turn Off the Offensive Comments Filter
Instagram's built-in filter hides comments it considers offensive. It's on by default and there's no way to see its keyword list — it's a black box.
- Go to Settings → Privacy → Hidden Words
- Toggle off Hide Offensive Comments
- Optionally, also toggle off Advanced Comment Filtering
The trade-off: you'll see more spam, but you'll also stop losing legitimate comments. For personal accounts this filter is fine. For business accounts running ads, it's often too aggressive.
4. Check If You've Restricted the Commenter
Instagram's "Restrict" feature hides someone's comments from everyone except that person. They won't know they've been restricted — their comments just become invisible to everyone else.
- Go to the commenter's profile
- Tap the three-dot menu (⋯)
- If "Unrestrict" appears, you've restricted them
- Tap Unrestrict to make their comments visible again
This is easy to trigger accidentally and hard to notice. If a specific person's comments keep disappearing, check this first.
Why Hidden Comments Cost You More Than You Think
For personal accounts, a hidden comment is a minor inconvenience. For brands and advertisers, it's lost revenue.
Here's what happens every day on ad posts:
- Someone comments "How much?" → Instagram's filter hides it because it looks like spam
- A potential buyer asks "Do you ship to [country]?" → Your keyword filter catches "ship"
- A customer writes "Is this legit?" → The offensive comment filter flags it as potentially negative
Each of these is a buying signal. When they go unanswered, the customer moves on. They don't comment again. They don't DM. They just leave.
The manual fix — checking each post, scrolling to hidden comments, reviewing one by one — works when you have 5 posts and 20 comments a day. It breaks completely when you're running 10 ad sets across multiple pages and getting hundreds of comments daily.
When Manual Checking Doesn't Scale
If you're managing comments at any real volume — running paid ads, handling client accounts, or managing multiple pages — hidden comments become a workflow problem, not a settings problem.
The four fixes above will help you recover comments that are already hidden. But to stop losing them in the first place, you need a system that:
- Scans incoming comments before Instagram's filters bury them
- Distinguishes real purchase intent ("price?", "link?", "how to order?") from actual spam
- Replies quickly — before the buyer's attention moves on
This is what tools like ReplyZen are built for. It monitors comments across all your ad posts in real time, catches the buying signals that Instagram's filters miss, and replies automatically — so you don't have to check every post manually.
Never miss a buying signal
ReplyZen catches purchase-intent comments before Instagram's filters bury them — and replies automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I unhide all comments at once on Instagram?
Not natively — Instagram doesn't offer a bulk unhide option. You have to unhide comments one by one on each post. The most impactful thing you can do within Instagram itself is review your Hidden Words settings and your Offensive Comments filter — adjusting those prevents future comments from being auto-hidden. If you need bulk hide/unhide across posts, tools like ReplyZen support that out of the box.
Why are comments disappearing on my Instagram ads?
Ad posts attract a high volume of short, direct comments — "price?", "link?", "is this available?" Instagram's spam detection treats these as low-quality because they look similar to bot comments. The irony is that these are often your highest-intent comments. Check your Hidden Words settings and consider turning off the Offensive Comments filter for business accounts.
Does hiding a comment on Instagram notify the person?
No. When you manually hide a comment, or when Instagram auto-hides it, the commenter is not notified. The comment still appears visible to them — they won't know it's hidden from everyone else. This is similar to how the Restrict feature works.
How do I stop Instagram from hiding comments automatically?
Go to Settings → Privacy → Hidden Words and turn off both Hide Offensive Comments and Advanced Comment Filtering. Also review your custom word list and remove any terms that might match legitimate comments. You can't fully disable all automated filtering — Instagram will still remove comments it considers severe violations.
Can I see who hid a comment on my Instagram business account?
If you're the only admin, any hidden comment was either hidden by you or by Instagram's automated filters. If you have multiple admins through Meta Business Suite, check the activity log in Business Suite to see who took moderation actions.
