How to Change Reels Settings on Instagram

Figuring out where to change specific settings for your Instagram Reels can feel like a maze, with essential toggles hidden in different menus. This guide will walk you through every critical setting, from adjusting privacy before you post to managing advanced options like Remix permissions and Facebook recommendations after your Reel is already live. You’ll learn exactly where to go to control who sees your content, how they can interact with it, and how your Reels are discovered.

Changing Your Reel’s Settings: A Complete Walkthrough

There are three main places to adjust your Reels settings: on the final share screen right before you post, from your main account settings, and on an individual Reel after it's been published. We'll cover all of them so you know exactly where to go for any adjustment.

Part 1: The Pre-Post Checklist (The "Share" Screen)

You’ve finished editing your masterpiece, chosen the perfect audio, and tapped “Next.” You’re now on the final screen before your Reel goes live. This dashboard contains the most immediate and common settings you’ll need to adjust for each video. Let's break it down.

1. Writing Your Caption and Adding Hashtags

This is your chance to add context, tell a story, or include a call-to-action. A great caption can hook viewers and encourage engagement. Remember to add relevant hashtags to help Instagram categorize your content and show it to users interested in your niche. You can add up to 30, but a focused group of 5-10 strong hashtags is often more effective.

2. Changing Your Cover Photo

The cover photo is the thumbnail image people see on your profile grid and in the Reels tab. Don't leave it to chance!

• Tap Edit cover on the preview image.
• Drag the slider at the bottom to select a specific frame from your video. This is the simplest option.
• For a branded, polished look, tap Add from camera roll to upload a custom-designed cover image from your phone's gallery. This gives you complete control over your grid's aesthetic.
• You can also tap Profile grid to adjust how the thumbnail is cropped on your main profile feed.

3. Tagging People and Collaboration Invites

If your Reel features other creators, businesses, or friends, use the Tag people option. Tagging an account sends them a notification and connects your content to their profile. You can also send a collaboration invite from this screen. If they accept, the Reel will appear on both of your profiles, sharing view counts, likes, and comments. This is a powerful strategy for reaching a new audience organically.

4. Choosing Your Audience (Public vs. Close Friends)

Next to "Audience," you'll see a small dropdown menu. This is your primary privacy setting for an individual Reel. For brand building and growth, you'll almost always want this set to Public. However, if you're testing an idea or sharing something personal, you can select Close Friends to limit its visibility to only the people on that list.

5. Adding a Location

Tapping Add Location lets you geotag your Reel. This is a great way to increase discoverability, especially for local businesses, travelers, or creators focusing on a specific city or region. Your Reel may appear in location-based searches, exposing it to a highly relevant audience.

6. Sharing to Your Feed

The "Also share to Feed" toggle is one of the most important settings on this screen.

• On: Your Reel will appear on your main profile grid alongside your photos. This gives your existing followers a better chance of seeing it right away. We generally recommend keeping this on for maximum initial reach.
• Off: Your Reel will only be visible in the Reels tab on your profile and to users discovering it in the Reels explore feed. Some creators turn this off to maintain a very specific aesthetic on their main grid (for example, if they only post static photos there).

You can always remove it from your grid later if you change your mind.

7. Advanced Settings: The Hidden Gems

Don't miss the Advanced settings button at the very bottom of this screen! It holds a few powerful options.

• Schedule this reel: A long-awaited feature! Here, you can schedule your Reel to be published at a future date and time, up to 75 days in advance.
• Show captions: Toggle this on to automatically generate captions (subtitles) for your Reel. This is a massive accessibility win and helps people watch your content with the sound off. You should almost always have this enabled.
• Upload at highest quality: Head to Settings and privacy > Media quality in your main Instagram settings and make sure this toggle is switched on. Doing this ensures your videos are processed with the best possible resolution, preventing that grainy, compressed look. You only need to do this once, not for every Reel.

Part 2: Global Reels Settings: Control Rules for All Your Content

Some of the most important settings aren't adjusted per Reel, but are "set-it-and-forget-it" rules that apply to your account globally. You'll find these deep within your main Instagram settings.

To get there, go to your Profile > Tap the three horizontal lines (hamburger menu) in the top right > Settings and privacy.

1. Controlling Who Can Remix Your Reels

A "Remix" is when another user takes your Reel and films their own video to appear alongside it. It's a key feature for trends and user-generated content.

• In Settings and privacy, scroll down to the "How others can interact with you" section.
• Tap Sharing and remixes.
• Here you can completely enable or disable the ability for others to Remix your Reels or Feed videos. You can set an "all or nothing" rule here.
• Why change this? For brands, enabling Remixes is a fantastic way to encourage audience participation. For personal accounts, disabling it can offer more privacy and control over how your content is used.

2. Controlling Who Can Share Your Reels

In that same Sharing and remixes menu, you’ll find toggles that control if other users can share your Reels to their Stories or in messages. Disabling this limits the organic spread of your content, so most creators keep it enabled. However, if privacy is your main concern, you have the option to lock it down.

3. Suggesting Reels on Facebook

This is a massive setting for reach. By default, Instagram may recommend your Reels to users on Facebook.

• Go to the Sharing and remixes menu.
• Scroll to the bottom to find "Recommend on Facebook."
• You can decide to allow Facebook to recommend any of your future reels, or specify "once" for just the next one.
• Why change this? Enabling it can expose your content to a much broader audience beyond your Instagram followers. Disabling it might be a good idea if your brand's Facebook presence is separate or targets a completely different demographic.

4. Modifying Comment Controls

You can manage who is allowed to comment on your content and automatically hide comments containing specific words.

• Go to Settings and privacy > Comments.
• Here, you can choose to allow comments from Everyone, People you follow, or even block comments from specific people.
• Further down, you'll find "Hidden Words," where you can add phrases or keywords that will cause comments containing them to be automatically filtered out. This is a powerful tool for community management and maintaining a positive environment.

Part 3: Adjusting Settings on an Already Published Reel

Changed your mind about something after posting? No problem. Instagram gives you flexibility to edit several key settings on a live Reel.

Navigate to the Reel you want to change, then tap the three-dot menu (...) typically located in the bottom-right corner.

1. Editing the Caption, Tags, Location, and Cover

Select Edit from the menu. From this screen, you can:

• Rewrite your entire caption.
• Add or remove hashtags.
• Change the cover photo (this is huge!).
• Add, remove, or adjust tagged accounts.
• Add a location-tag if you forgot, or change the existing one.

Note: You cannot change the video clips, audio, or effects after a Reel has been posted. For that, you would need to delete it and re-upload.

2. Managing Comments and Pinning

If a specific Reel is attracting negative feedback, you can select Turn off commenting from the three-dot menu to disable comments for that video only, without changing your global settings. You can also Pin your favorite comments to the top by swiping left on a comment and tapping the thumbtack icon.

3. Hiding Like Counts

Feeling creative pressure from the numbers? You can hide the "like and play count" on a single video. From the "..." menu, simply tap "Hide like count." This hides the number from other users, but you'll still be able to view it privately.

4. Removing a Reel From Your Profile Grid

If you initially chose "Share to Feed" but now want to clean up your main grid aesthetic, you don't have to delete the Reel.

• Tap the three-dot menu (...)
• Select Remove from Profile Grid.

Your Reel is gone from the main square grid but will still live in your profile's dedicated Reels tab and remain discoverable on the main Reels feed. You can also add it back to the grid at any time if you wish.

Final Thoughts

Mastering these Instagram Reels settings transforms you from a casual user into a strategic creator. By understanding how to control everything from pre-post scheduling and captions to nuanced privacy options like Remix controls and Facebook recommendations, you can take full control over your content strategy, reach, and community interaction.

We know that managing all these granular details - captions, hashtags, scheduling times, and platform-specific settings - can become overwhelming, especially when you're juggling multiple posts a week. At Postbase, we built our platform to solve this exact problem. By bringing all your content planning into one beautiful, visual calendar, we make it simple to see your whole strategy at a glance, schedule everything in advance, and publish reliably without pulling your hair out. It helps us get back time to focus on creating, not just managing.