How to Change Repost Settings on Instagram

Trying to manage who can share your Instagram content can feel like a bit of a scavenger hunt, but you're in the right place. Instagram's settings are spread across a few different menus, making it tricky to know exactly where to go to turn reposting on or off. This guide will walk you through exactly how to change the sharing settings for your Feed posts, Stories, and Reels, so you can have full control over your content.

First, What Does "Reposting" Mean on Instagram Today?

Before we get into the settings, let's get clear on what "reposting" actually is on Instagram in 2024. The term can mean a few different things, and Instagram doesn't use the word "repost" as a feature name. For years, creators relied on third-party "regramming" apps that would screen-capture and re-upload someone else's post (often with a credit overlay). While some people still do this, it's not an official Instagram feature.

Today, sharing is more officially integrated into the platform. When people talk about reposting, they usually mean one of these three actions:

• Sharing a Feed Post to a Story: This is the most common form of "reposting." Someone taps the paper airplane icon on your post and adds it to their own Story as a clickable sticker.
• Sharing a Story: If you tag someone in your Story, they get a notification with an option to reshare it to their own Story for 24 hours. People can also share your Story with others via Direct Message.
• Remixing or Sharing a Reel: Reels have their own unique sharing options, including Remixes (where someone creates a new Reel alongside yours) and the ability for others to share your Reel to their own Stories or download it.

Understanding these distinctions is helpful because the settings for each are located in different places within the app. Let's go through them one by one.

Controlling Who Can Share Your Feed Posts to Their Stories

This is the big one. If you want to stop people from taking your beautiful grid posts and sharing them as temporary stickers in their Stories, this is the setting you need to change. When this setting is enabled, anyone can share your public posts to their Story. When it's disabled, the "Add to story" option disappears for other users.

Disabling this is a simple toggle. Don't worry, disabling this won't prevent people from sharing your post with friends via Direct Message, it only affects sharing to their public Story.

Step-by-Step Guide to Change Feed Post Sharing Settings:

1. Open the Instagram app and go to your Profile by tapping your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.
2. Tap the menu icon (the three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner to open the main menu.
3. Select Settings and Privacy. This is at the very top of the menu.
4. Scroll down until you see the "How others can interact with you" section and tap on Sharing and remixes.
5. Look for the section titled "What people can share and remix." You'll see several toggles here.
6. Find the toggle labeled Allow people to share your posts to their stories and tap it to turn it off. If the toggle is blue, it's on, if it's gray, it's off.

That's it! From now on, others will not see the option to add your future feed posts to their Stories. Note that this change isn't retroactive, so posts that have already been shared to someone's Story will remain there until that Story expires after 24 hours.

A Quick Note for Business Accounts & Creators

If you're building a brand or growing your following, you should think carefully before turning this feature off. Every time someone shares your post to their Story, it acts as free advertising. Their followers can see your post, click through to your profile, and potentially become new followers. This is a powerful driver of organic reach. Unless you have a strong reason to protect your content's distribution (like selling exclusive art), leaving this feature on is generally the best strategy for growth.

How to Manage Your Instagram Story Sharing and Resharing

Story sharing works differently from feed posts. By default, people can't just share a random Story of yours to their own Story. However, there are a few settings that control how your Stories are seen and shared, giving you precise control.

Preventing Reshares When You Tag Someone

If you @mention someone in your Story, they'll receive a notification and a button to reshare that content to their own Story. This is great for collaborations, but you might not always want that. You can disable this on a global level.

• Navigate to Settings and Privacy > Sharing and remixes.
• Under the "Stories" section, find the toggle for Allow people to share your stories they're tagged in.
• Turn this off if you don't want accounts you tag to be able to reshare your story. They'll still get a notification that you mentioned them.

Stopping People from Sharing Your Story in Messages

Even if you turn off Story resharing, people can still send your Story to others through Direct Messages. If you want to lock down your content further, you can disable this as well.

• Go to Settings and Privacy > Sharing and remixes.
• Toggle off Allow sharing to messages. When disabled, the paper airplane icon at the bottom of your Story will disappear for viewers.

Hiding Your Story from Specific People

Sometimes, the easiest way to manage "sharing" is to prevent certain people from seeing your content in the first place. If they can't see your Story, they can't share it. This is useful for privacy without having to make your entire account private.

1. Go to your Settings and Privacy menu.
2. Scroll down and tap on Hide story and live.
3. Tap on Hide story from.
4. You can then search for and select the specific accounts you want to prevent from viewing your Stories and Live videos. Tap "Done" when you're finished. They won't be notified of this change.

Your Guide to Instagram Reels Remix and Sharing Settings

Reels are designed to be shared, spread, and remixed, so their settings offer a wide range of controls. From disabling Remixes to preventing downloads, here’s how to manage your Reels.

Turning Remixes On or Off for All of Your Reels

A "Remix" is when someone creates a new Reel that appears next to yours, often to react, respond, or add their own creative spin. It’s a core growth feature on Instagram, but you have full control over it.

1. Head back to Settings and Privacy > Sharing and remixes.
2. Here, you'll find toggles for both Allow people to remix your reels and Allow people to remix your feed videos.
3. You can disable these individually. If you stop allowing Reel remixes, people won't be able to create new Remixes with your future content.

Turning Remixes Off for a Single, Specific Reel

Maybe you're fine with most of your Reels being remixed, but you have one specific video you want to protect. You can disable Remixes on a post-by-post basis.

1. Open the Reel you want to change the settings for.
2. Tap the three dots (...) at the bottom right of the screen.
3. Select Manage from the menu that appears.
4. Tap Don't allow remixes and then confirm your choice.

Controlling Other Reels Sharing Options

Beyond Remixing, you can also control if people can share your Reels to their Stories or download them to their devices.

• Sharing to Stories: In the Sharing and remixes menu, you’ll find another toggle: Allow people to share your reels to their stories. Turning this off will prevent people from adding your Reel to their Story, similar to a feed post.
• Disabling Downloads: Right below that, you'll see a setting for Allow people to download your reels. For some accounts, turning off downloads can help protect original content from being reposted elsewhere without permission. Toggling this off removes the "Download" option for viewers.

Should You Restrict Sharing? A Strategic Look for Brands and Creators

Now that you know how to lock down your content, the bigger question is: should you? For personal accounts wanting privacy, the answer is often yes. For brands, influencers, and creators trying to grow, the decision requires more thought.

Reasons to Allow Sharing Wide Open

• Massive Organic Reach: Every single share, reshare, and Remix is free exposure to a new audience. It's one of the most powerful organic growth engines on the platform.
• Fosters Community & User-Generated Content (UGC): Allowing shares encourages your audience to engage with your brand on a deeper level. A Remix can start a trend, and a Story share can show brand loyalty.
• Signals to the Algorithm: High share and Remix counts are positive engagement signals that tell the Instagram algorithm your content is valuable, which can lead to even wider distribution.

Reasons You Might Want to Restrict Sharing

• Protecting Copyrighted Material: If you are a filmmaker, artist, or photographer selling digital content, you may want to prevent downloads or easy resharing to protect your assets.
• Maintaining Brand Control: For brands with very specific aesthetics or strict messaging, you may want to limit the ways your content can be used out of context by others.
• Privacy: Of course, for personal accounts, turning off sharing is a perfectly valid way to maintain your privacy and control who sees your life updates.

For most businesses and creators focused on growth, the correct move is to keep sharing settings as open as possible. The upside of increased exposure generally far outweighs the risks of your content being misused.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, Instagram gives you granular control over how your hard work is shared, whether it’s a feed post, Story, or Reel. By navigating to the "Sharing and remixes" section in your privacy settings, you can adjust toggles that grant or revoke others’ ability to repost your content, giving you total command over its distribution.

As you build your content strategy and refine these settings, keeping everything consistent and scheduled can feel like a huge challenge. At Postbase, we designed our tool to solve that exact problem. Our modern, visual calendar lets you plan and reliably schedule all your Reels, Stories, and posts across Instagram and other platforms, so you can focus less on the busywork and more on creating fantastic content that your audience will be excited to share.