I’m guessing we could crack the code with this particular sequence.
I get asked a LOT if I see and/or read all of the comments/mentions/tags we get on Instagram. And my honest answer is no. I’m fairly certain it’s not humanly possible. And here’s why: 80, 50, 80.
Shortly after our story ran on Mommy Shorts and then The Huffington Post, I had to turn off Instagram notifications popping up on my phone. Because they were non-stop. Literally.
But when I’d open the app, I still had my notifications pop up at the bottom of the screen and I’d always go check out the news tab to see what was happening on my feed as well as see what my friends were up to.
It’s when actual friends started texting me and sending private messages asking me “did you see what so and so commented?” or “DID YOU SEE MY COMMENT?” that I realized that my news tab was not indeed sharing all notifications with me.
Truth is, the magic number with Instagram is 80. Currently. That’s how many notifications IG allows in your “news” tab. And that’s the 80 most recent. So, if you happen to mention me in a comment on a photo of yours and then 80 people stop by and double tap on any of my images, I NEVER get that notification that you mentioned me. Ever. The only way I’ll see it, is if I happen to see your image and read all of the comments and notice my name in there. If you happen to mention me in a comment on someone’s photo that I don’t follow …. chances are, that one is lost in the great abyss forever.
I do however click on and read the comments on my own photographs and try to engage as much as possible on those.
So that’s the deal. The current magic number is 80. Any combination of comments, “likes”, new follows and tags will add up to 80 in my notifications. And that’s all I will see. Need proof? Feel free to put your addition skills to the test on these screen grabs I snagged yesterday:
So now you’re wondering what’s the deal with 50, right? Well, about a month after our story went viral, I was going to publish this post. Because I didn’t want people to think that I ignore the comments and mentions that I discovered I wasn’t actually seeing. I started grabbing screen captures of my notifications (like you see above) and one day the magic number changed to 50. And it stayed that way for a few days. I have no idea why. It just did. (My best guess is that was a test of the emergency broadcast system … this was only a test.) Shortly after, the magic number jumped back up to 80 and has stayed that way since.
So if you’ve ever wondered if I (or anyone else for that matter) see every comment in which they’re mentioned, there’s a very good chance they don’t. So please don’t take it personally if you don’t get a reply. The simple truth is that the comment/mention may not land in the notifications. For now anyway.
And there you have it – my guess for the combination to unlock Instagram 😉
So was this news to you or did you already know this little tidbit about IG?
Don’t forget – our first dress auction for charity is on the home stretch! Read more about it here or go HERE to bid on it!
Cool! I learned something new today (about IG 80 limit). More importantly, I’ve been wanting to tell you what a beautiful bond you have with Mayhem. Thanks for putting mommy duties before fame and social media. It is rare in these times of “15 second of fame”. xx
This was totally news to me! I am actually glad you shared it because I was always curious how that worked. Keep up the great work! I love seeing what you guys are up to each day!
http://www.amemoryofus.blogspot.com
I just wanted to say thank you for all that you are doing in terms of food allergies! As a long time sufferer of food allergies myself it’s really nice to see the “condition” getting more attention. I loved fashion as a kid (I’m only seventeen now) and used to make paper dresses for dolls, I so wish I had thought to make the dresses for myself! Both you and Mayhem are so inspiring!
That makes so much sense! In light of that info I want to let you know I mentioned you (on IG) a couple of months ago in a sequence of drawings I did of Mayhem in her dresses. If you’d like a copy of then, I’d be glad to send them to you! You can see the drawings under my Instagram handle ofDustandWonder. 🙂 The paper dresses have been very inspiring!
Such interesting insight! I wonder why Instagram chose such an arbitrary number?
No idea – I’ve tried to do a little research on it but haven’t dug up much. It does seem like a fairly arbitrary number but I guess since it’s designed to be a mobile app there could be something to do with how much data would be used if it had to store an unlimited number of notifications… Who knows – clearly I don’t 😉
I don’t have many followers but even I find this frustrating, I imagine for “power users” it must be much worse!
There are two apps I use that I found helpful – mycomment and followers+
followers + tells you new followers, unfollowers, who you’re not following back, who’s not following back
mycomment tells you all the comments you haven’t replied to – it’s not perfect actually, because sometimes you don’t want/need to reply to a comment but you can’t get rid of it, but it’s the best app I’ve found so far.
Hope this helps you 🙂
Glad you wrote this, this morning one of my IG posts starting getting way more likes than my average and my followers started going up quite a bit too. But when I scrolled down to see where it all stemmed from I couldn’t figure it out. I thought maybe I’d been featured somewhere popular with a link through… then my guess was that it simply came from @natgeotravel having liked the picture (they have almost a million followers)… but now I’m not so sure, I guess I’ll never know unless I ask one of the people who have found me this way…
Would LOVE to feature you on my CreativeLive Instagram course. Nov 5-7 … let me know if you are interested. I tagged you a while ago but prob. got lost in the abyss w all your other fans xo
The limit is now 100. Still not enough but better!
Thanks you – I found this as I spotted one of my followers had given me a shout out last night, but as I was on a (rare!) night out with my husband I didn’t reply straightaway. Cut to this morning, and I have no way of going back to find out who it was to say thank you. There shoudl be a way to separate out comments and likes to make it easier to respond to the comments. It’s OK on your own feed, as you can just check against your images, but if someone else mentions you…. as you say… lost forever. At least I know now there is no way I can track them down to say thanks 🙁
This was super helpful. Thanks!
So the question remains…. how do you see older notifications!? There must be an app for that…