Private account

Settings, Privacy & safety, Private account. While your account is private, new people cannot simply follow you — they send a follow request, and you approve or decline it from your notifications. Your posts are visible to your approved followers; the public feeds and search do not show them. While Private account is on, both follow-list settings below it are treated as followers-only, whatever they are set to — the switch says so on the spot. Turning private off returns them to their own values, and pending follow requests are accepted automatically.