Published 06 Mar 2025

Ways How to Tag Someone on Instagram Story Without It Showing

Instagram stories are one of the most popular types of content on the social networks. Reports show that more than half a billion users access stories every day – it is 1/14th of the whole Earth’s population. Almost 90% of Instagram users publish stories on their pages daily, and many American brands spend around ⅓ of their advertising budgets on this type of content. Thus, it is not surprising that many people wonder how to work with stories effectively and how to make them better, and not less people want to know how to tag someone in Instagram story without it showing and how to hide mentions on Instagram. Without further ado, let’s find out!

Tags and Mentions: What Is The Difference?

Before discussing how to secretly tag people and how to mention them, let’s find out the difference between these two features and what they are needed for.

A tag is a special Instagram feature used to associate Instagram content with a specific user or topic. Correspondingly, topic-related tags are called hashtags, and people-related ones are called user tags. In the context of today’s article, we will be more focused on the second type. User tags are needed to identify people (and, sometimes, locations) on pictures and stories, in other words, they are applied directly to the visual content, using the text tool.

Mentions are more linked to texts and comments: You can refer to a person or get their attention by mentioning them in the text. They can also be used in stories, but unlike tags, they can only be added as a special mention sticker. People often use mentions to address their questions personally to someone or to get a direct reaction to the content posted.

So, how to tag someone on Instagram story without it showing? It is not as simple as you may want, but there are some interesting and tricky ways.

How to Hide Mentions on Instagram: A Brief Guide

There is no direct way how to hide mentions on Instagram; there is no feature or setting “Mention Secretly”. However, there are several ways how you can make mentions as invisible as possible using your wit instead of Instagram functionality. 

1. The easiest way how to tag someone on Instagram story without it showing is to hide it. Create the mention sticker, enter the user’s name, and then hide it behind an emoji or another sticker. You can also shrink it as much as possible and place it in the corner of the story or outside the border. In this way, a person you mentioned will be notified, but other users will not see that there is a mention in the story. It is called an invisible mention in an Instagram story.
2. If you want to mention someone in the comments, become the fastest mentioner in the Wild Internet! Write a comment mentioning someone in it, and then delete the comment immediately. In such a way, another person will be notified about the mention, but no one will see it.
3. Change your account type to private to make the mention visible to a limited circle of people. This way, only chosen people will be able to see both the content you post and the mentions you make.

Invisible mention in Instagram story is one of the most used methods, so if you get notified about a mention, open a story, and do not see any mention stickers there – most probably, it is hidden behind another layer.

Tag Someone in Instagram Story Without It Showing: Main Steps

If you want to tag someone in Instagram story without it showing, there is no direct method as well, so you need to be more inventive. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to hide a tag in your stories.

1. Start creating a story on Instagram by tapping on your profile picture in the top-left corner of your feed.
2. Choose the picture or video you want to add to the story from your library or make a new one on the go.
3. Create a tag on your story by tapping the “Aa” symbol on the top tool panel and typing @username in the text layer.
4. Tap anywhere else on the story to close the text-editing mode.
5. Shrink the text layer with the tag as much as possible.
6. Long tap on the tag layer and drag it down. In such a way, all newly created layers will cover this one. Create a new layer with text, add a sticker, a questionnaire, or anything else, and place it on top of the tag. Voila! Your ghost tag is ready.

As you can see, if you know how to hide mentions on Instagram, you should have no problems with tags.

A Secret Method

There is one secret method that is not mentioned in most of the guides: how to tag someone on Instagram story without it showing. After you post the story, tap the “…” icon in the bottom right corner. There, tap Add Mention, and choose the person from your Followed list. That person will be notified about your story in their DM, but there will be no direct mentions of the story itself.

How to Ensure That Other Users Cannot Tag You?

Not everyone wants to be tagged in stories or posts. Even if you tag someone in Instagram story without it showing, that person may not be happy to receive that notification. Or you are that very person who does not like to be tagged. What is the solution here?

Instagram has thought about such users and given them an opportunity to block all tags and mentions. To do so, follow these steps:

• tap on the three-line symbol in the top right corner of your profile;
• scroll down to the section “How others can interact with you”;
• tap on “Tags and Mentions”;
• activate “Don’t allow tags” and “Don’t allow mentions”.

After that, you won’t be disturbed by any tag and mention notifications.

How to View Stories Posted by Private Accounts

We mentioned that if you do not know how to tag someone in an Instagram story without it showing, you can set your account to private. But what if you appear to be on the other side? You are the person who wants to see stories posted by a private account. What should you do in this case?

Luckily for you, there is an anonymous Instagram story viewer called View Stories Anonymously that can help! Its main feature is that it can access content posted by private profiles without joining the platform or logging into your own account. So, if you know the name of the private account you want to view or have a link for it – paste it into Viewstoriesanonymously’s search bar and give it some time to scan the page. In a bit, you will see all the stories, posts, reels, etc., posted by that user.

Of course, you will not know if there is an invisible mention in the Instagram story you view with Viewstoriesanonymously, but neither will anyone. However, you can still view the story, which is available only to a narrow circle of people in the “Close Friends” group on Instagram. It will also be saved in your Viewstoriesanonymously account for three months, and if needed, you can download it on your device.

Conclusion

You cannot tag someone in Instagram story without it showing using standard Instagram tools: there are simply none. Instead, there are some tricky ways of hiding the mentions and tags, such as invisible mention in Instagram story and ghost tags. To limit the circle of people who can view their content, Instagram users can set their accounts to Private mode. However, if you need to view something posted by a private account, Viewstoriesanonymously is at your service and ready to action.