How to undo an Instagram repost

23 October 2026 · Ethan Parker, Editor

Undoing an Instagram repost takes two taps on the icon that made it. What that removes, what it leaves behind, and how to undo the other reshares.

You undo an Instagram repost the same way you made it: open the post you reposted, tap the repost icon a second time, and it comes off your profile. The exception matters, because it catches most people asking this question. That two-tap undo only covers Instagram's own repost button. If what you actually did was share the post to your story, send it in a direct message, or download it and post it again yourself, none of those are removed here. Each one is undone somewhere else.

The mechanic, so you can check it in five seconds. Find the post again, look along the row of icons underneath it, and find the repost icon: two arrows chasing each other in a loop. It looks switched on while your repost is live. Tap it once more and it goes back to plain, and the post drops out of the reposts tab on your profile. Instagram moves that row of icons around between app versions and account types, so trust what your own app shows you over any article, this one included.

The rest of this covers what the undo reaches and what it does not: the original creator's counts, the people who already saw it, and the four other actions people call reposting.

What are the exact steps to undo a repost?

1. Open your own profile and find the reposts tab. It is a separate tab from your grid, marked with the same loop icon.
2. Tap the repost you want gone. That opens the original post, because a repost is a pointer to it rather than a copy of it.
3. Look along the action row under the post and tap the repost icon again. It is the same icon you tapped to make the repost in the first place.
4. Confirm, if your app asks. Some versions ask and some just do it.
5. Go back to the reposts tab and check the entry has gone. That tab is the only proof worth trusting, because a feed can be stale for a while.

If there is no reposts tab on your profile, you almost certainly have not made a repost with the button, and what you are trying to undo is one of the other four actions further down this page. A rundown of which action lands where is in where reposts show up on a profile, and what the button itself does to a post is covered in what the repost button does.

What does undoing a repost do to the original post?

A repost carries the original rather than copies it. Everything that happens on your repost happens on the creator's post: the views, the likes, the saves. So when you undo, you remove your pointer, not their post. Nothing you do here can delete, hide or damage the thing you reposted.

The repost count on the original is the number that moves. It went up by one when you reposted and it comes back down when you undo. What happens to the views and likes that arrived through your repost while it was live is not something Instagram documents, so treat this as the sensible reading rather than a fact anyone has proved: those taps were made by real people on a real post, and the post keeps them.

Does the creator get told you undid it?

There is no un-repost alert. Instagram has never shipped a notification that says somebody has taken their repost back, and the only trace left behind is a repost count one lower than it was. Most creators will never spot that, and they cannot see a list of who reposted them either, which the post on seeing who reposted you goes through. If you reposted something by mistake and you are worried about it, undo it and move on. The awkwardness is almost entirely in your own head.

How do you undo a story reshare?

Sharing a post to your story is not a repost, and it has its own undo: delete the story. Open your own story, tap the three dots in the corner, and choose to delete that frame. It goes for everyone straight away, and any part of it that was still waiting to be seen is never seen.

One thing gets missed here. If you saved that story into a highlight, deleting the story frame is not always enough. Highlights are their own shelf under your bio, so open the highlight, find the frame, and remove it from there too. Otherwise the reshare you thought you had removed is still one tap from your profile picture.

How do you take back a post you sent in a direct message?

Press and hold the message in the chat, then choose to unsend it. It disappears from the thread for both of you. That is the closest thing to an undo that a direct message has, and it works the same on a shared post as it does on a typed message.

If you downloaded it and posted it again, undo means delete

This is the one that is not a repost at all. When you save someone's photo or reel to your phone and upload it from your own camera roll, Instagram sees a brand new post of yours with no link back to the original. There is no repost icon to un-tap, because you never tapped one. Removing it means archiving or deleting your own post from your own grid, which is a different action with a different result: your caption, your likes and your comments go with it.

An undo cannot un-show the post to people who already saw it

It cannot un-show the post. Everyone who already saw the repost in their feed has already seen it, and nothing in the app reaches back into that. If somebody screenshotted it, that screenshot is theirs now. An undo tidies up what is showing from this moment on. It is not a rewind, and anyone promising more than that is selling something Instagram does not offer.

Stopping other people reposting you is a different setting

If the thing you actually want is for your own posts not to be reposted, undoing is the wrong tool, because you can only undo your own repost. The setting that stops other people resharing your work lives in your privacy settings, not on the post, and it applies to your whole account at once rather than to a single photo.

A paid month does not undo anything on Instagram

This is a good place to be exact about what we sell, because a post about removing things should not end by implying we can remove things. ReachGrows delivers reach, views, likes, shares, reposts and saves. It does not touch Instagram Stories. You pick the least and the most reach a post of yours should get, hand over your public username, and every feed post and reel you publish over the next 30 days, up to 30 posts, gets worked on inside that band. One PayPal payment, no account, no password, nothing that renews on its own.

The honest limit: none of that touches this article's subject. We cannot undo a repost for you, we cannot remove a repost somebody made of your post, and we cannot take back a story you already shared. Those are two taps in your own app and they cost nothing. What a paid month is for is the plain work of getting your own posts in front of more people, which is the same job whether you repost anything or not. The FAQ lists what is and is not included.

• How do you undo an Instagram repost? Open the post, tap the repost icon a second time, and it leaves your profile.
• Where do you find the reposts you have made? In the reposts tab on your own profile, which is separate from your grid.
• Does undoing a repost delete the original post? No. You remove your pointer to it. The creator's post is untouched.
• Does the creator get a notification? No. There is no un-repost alert. The only trace is a repost count one lower than before.
• How do you undo a story reshare? Delete the story frame, then remove it from any highlight you saved it into.
• Can you undo a post you downloaded and re-uploaded? Only by archiving or deleting your own post, which takes your likes and comments with it.