Instagram Hashtags Not Working

EDIT: Facebook will unlink your Instagram account if you do not access Facebook often,to get your hashtags to work again, you need to re link Facebook with Instagram via Share Settings, see instructions below.

I thought I would write up a quick post in regards to Instagram and *new* users, before facebook took over. I recently became a Instagram addict and I love everything about it. I was fed up with social media about a year ago and deleted my facebook account. So when I started using Instagram I was instantly addicted. Anyway the problem that I was noticing was none, I mean no #hastags were working for me. My other friends could do it right before my eyes. So I started to think, what’s different between their account and mine. Did I like something raunchy that got me banned? It turns out they had an active facebook account linked to their instagram account. Or they were customers before facebook took over so it did not matter. I decided to setup a test facebook account for testing, I linked it with Instagram and bam!! hashtags started working.

So in short, you need a facebook account to hashtag ever since facebook took over. At least it worked for me.

EDIT: this post has become quite popular.. For those who do not know how to link with Facebook. You need to do this from the Instagram application Settings.
1. Go to your profile
2. Tap (Android) or (iPhone) in the upper-right corner Gear looking icon.
3. Tap Sharing Settings
4. Tap Facebook and connect using your Facebook login info

If this solution fixes your #hashtag problem, please reply and let me know. This will encourage me to continue posting helpful blogs. You do not need to register and I will approve all comments.

66 thoughts on “Instagram Hashtags Not Working”

  1. I am experiencing the same problem with the hash tags they have stopped working for the last month now. I have a Facebook Account however I don’t know how to connect them like you say

    Thanks James

    1. 1. Go to your profile
      2. Tap (Android) or (iPhone) in the upper-right corner Gear looking icon.
      3. Tap Sharing Settings
      4. Tap Facebook and connect using your Facebook login info

  2. OMG, thank you so much, I was having this problem and was desperate cause I needed to tag one photo to make my entry on a contest. This worked perfectly.

  3. hey I never comment on these types of things but I just wanted to let the author, and anyone who comes across this with the same problem know that this solution works. after a frustrating hour or so internet search i came across this site – because i wanted my IG to be anonymous i made a fake fb account added some people a picture and my “info” so I could connect it to IG and my tags work now. Thanks so much for this!!

  4. thanks for taking the time to share this discovery. my hashtags used to work fine, but now having same issue as described above. i do have my facebook acct linked up… acct is public too. exhausted many different ways to “reset” this feature, but to no avail. any suggestion would be appreciated. thx! -simon

  5. I had my account set up to fb already I had this account for a couple months but still my hashtags are NOT WORKING at all

    1. I’m also having this issue, however SOME hashtags work for me… Less commonly used tags tend to work whereas popular tags like “sunset” or “puppy” never work. Any ideas on how to resolve this?!?!

  6. YOU ARE A WONDERFUL SPECIMEN OF A HUMAN BEING

    I have my personal account on instragram, works fine, great. Then on my same phone and app I created a business IG, using my business email, linked to the business twitter. but the bloody tags would NOT WORK. I think the very first pic I put up worked and then literally nothing after. SO I deleted that account and created another with similar (but not same as the business) wording, still bloody thing did not work. I was so tempted to give up. Ive been scouring the internet for answers for 5 days now because this IG is V important. I was about to give up and go to bed (2:30am) and then came across THIS.

    I created a facebook account and it still didnt work, re-read your article and linked the accounts. and BAM IT BLOOOODDY WORKSSSSSSSSSS.

    Just wanted you to know I love you.

    absolute hero

  7. How on earth you figured this out is totally incredible. IG has frustrated the crap out of me but thanks to you I am enjoying it and winning! You’re a star!

  8. I’m sorry but it doesn’t work at all. It’s been several days and I’m annoyed by it. I haven’t had my fb account linked like ever and I reactivated it just to link it and nothing. I don’t know what else to do. I’m in Europe traveling and I post pics and nothing get attached (hashtags). I mean, some due but they are the ones that are so random and have so little pics on it.

  9. Thank you so much. This really does work. Link both accounts.

    I am now having an issue with my comments disappearing. I can’t leave or respond to comments. I’m not sure what to do. I have always used IG properly and never had any problems until recently. Thank you again for this post. It did work in my case.

    Thanks for your time.

    Ali

      1. Total BS. IG or Facebook just limited the use of tags with more than 100 000 pics for some of us. Complete at random. Has nothing to do with ‘scrolling’ or ‘fast growing rooms’ – you know it, so please admit that.

        1. I was unaware of this, and I only gave my advice on what I thought was occurring to these internet folks. You may be right, who knows.

        2. Any chance anyone has figured out how to fix this? It’s been driving me nuts for the last two months. Any hashtag with over 100k photos won’t work for me. I’ve been searching for a solution , but haven’t found one.

          Please help……

  10. Yesss it finally worked!!!! I can post photos again and can look for them thru the hash tag i’ve put. Thank god i’ve found your post, otherwise i would go mad ๐Ÿ˜›

  11. Jason, I feel like I owe you my firstborn child- I could not for the life of me get any hashtags to work for our company’s Instagram account. Not even the ones we created specifically for our company. I changed the shared settings to link to our company Facebook and tried again, and it worked. You saved us! THANK YOU.

  12. Still not working for me! Connected my instagram and tested out random hashtags that don’t exist, like #asdnousadb – nothing! any other ideas?

    1. It’s not working for me either… ive restarted my phone, connected to facebook 3x already and my hash tags are still not viewable. Help!!! please

      1. Same here! I opened a new fb profile and connected it with my IG, but. Alas! I have also written to IG support but they don’t seem to care much ๐Ÿ™

  13. I really dont know what else to do!?

    I have always had my facebook and twitter linked to my instagram. I’ve unlinked both and re linked them and deleted tags and re-added them with random tags that no one would have and still my tags are not showing up!? Any ideas?
    Thanks

    1. Same as this, mine was working fine until about 2 weeks ago now, Its really frustrating as I have nearly 500 followers !

      I have tried reporting it to IG on Facebook, Twitter amongst other channels unsuccessfully.

  14. Wow thats amazing. Ive been wondering for quite awhile why my hashtags were no longer working! Instagram should have seriously written about this in the last few updates.

  15. Thank you Jason, you are the man!! For months my hashtags wouldn’t work until I saw this. I was losing my mind, went on vacation, and no hashtags. Thank you again.

  16. The fact that IG and the Facebook has kept this so quiet while so many suffered and pondered it is quite a targeted attack on the anti Facebook crowd. An insight to the darker side of the new owners of IG.

  17. omg thank you soo much! I was getting so fusterated with instagram i was going to delete my account. For months i was bugging my friends for answers and questions spending hours online searching for the answer. When i came across your page and started reading the comments i decided to give it a try and it WORKED!! ๐Ÿ™‚ thank you! very helpful

  18. This didn’t work for me. I already had Facebook linked. But I tried re-linking, rebooted and I even created a fake FB acct and linked with that acct. it still didn’t work.
    So far I still can’t hash tag any tags with more than 100000 photos.

  19. Hello. Nice tht you ar e able to answer so many questions. I linked my IG to facebook because hashtags didn`t work, but now facebookfriends are suddenly adding me on IG all the time. Is it any way to hide IG from facebook and still keep a public profile on IG? And if not, do you think I will get the same problems with hashtags if I unlink facebook and IG again? Thanks!

    1. If you unlink you will lose hashtag capabilities. I would suggest creating a dummy FB page and using that to link the profiles.

  20. Hello Jason,
    I ve tried all of the above, and a lot a lot more and it wont work. I bumped into some comments saying it happens once you start using Gramblr. I used Gramblr once a month ago. I desperately need help ๐Ÿ™

    1. Not familiar with Gramblr, so I can’t help with that. Maybe someone will comment with a solution, so far linking FB has been my only solution.

  21. on my account around september i went from having abot 45 -70 likes on a pic to now my pics get no around 9, total. a few i broke 10. Normally But i used to get 15-20 likes in mere seconds after posting. Now i get maybe 1 or 2 and it’s normally just the people that follow me. I thought it was a hashtag issue but they show up when i check the hashtags. I’ve don’t recall ever being banned. I can log in fine. I will say though a few months ago there was a day when i couldn’t log onto my account and i never understood why. I assumed instagram was down. It didn’t last all day if i recall. I’m linked to facebook, i’ve gotten rid of any third party apps that connect to my account. Nothing has changed. And if i do say so it’s not like the pics are bad.

    Another thing is i was getting 60 or 70 likes when i had 500 less followers.

    Any idea what’s wrong?

    Hell i never even cared about how many likes but I’d like for SOMEBODY to see the pics if i’m gonna post there. any insight is appreciated.

    1. The instant likes are computer programs that are designed to obtain followers, I think facebook has cracked down on these bots. I used to get the instant likes as well, not anymore.

      1. Thanks for the reply, hmm, interesting. Do you know if any articles describing this. I’d like to read more about it. i’ll google it.

        Even so i see people with 200 followers getting 180 likes for pictures of very little beauty or interest. Then i’ve got like 1000 followers and my likes fell off a cliff one month. I mean maybe they are all fake people but i don’t think most of them are. And it’s weird my followers have fallen by like 100+ people in the last months when it was going up before. It’s very weird. It just feels like my account is somehow set to private when it isn’t. Just weird behavior. I didn’t care until i noticed something weird and thought my account may be blocked. I posted like 4 or 5 of the best photos i’d ever taken and got only 5 likes in like 3 days when before it would have gotten way way more. Anyways weird. thanks i’ll look into it. Maybe all’s normal.

  22. I have linked my profile it was always linked. So I unlinked it relinked it, changed user name and password. Created another FB account and linked it. Nothing is working help me please.

  23. I re linked my instagram to my facebook but my hashtags still don’t work. it’s so frustrating because they have stopped working for months!! like a year i would say. people report me and stuff when i unfollow them so maybe that’s why they have stopped working. is there any other way i could get them working again?

    1. The only thing I can suggest is to reach out to Instagram support and ask for your account to be looked into. I personally have never done this so I am not 100% sure about the process. Try emailing [email protected]

  24. Its not working for me
    Ive been banned from instagram cause somebody flagged my account for no reason
    Since then my has tags are not working
    I reset my iphone did everything change my apple Id still not working
    Anybody have an idea ?
    K.

  25. I have multiple instagram accounts and my phone only links to my personal facebook page. I don’t want my business instagram pics to show up on my personal facebook… But everytime I link ig to fb it shows up on my personal… So I guess my question is how do you link multiple ig accounts with multiple fb accounts?? All was working fine without being linked to facebook until my business partner logged into our business ig from her phone… What do we do???!!!

    I would really like my hashtags to show up on my business account but I cant link it to my business facebook from my phone…
    Help!!
    Help!!!

    1. You would need your business Facebook accounts to be set up as pages rather than profiles, then in the shared settings on Instagram you can control Facebook pages and link them to Instagram accounts.

  26. It works again !! Thank you so much ! But would instagram post anything on my facebook without me giving permission ? And how do I turn that off ? Xx

  27. Okay so it only works if I put a few hasgtags on ?!? But when I put like 28 hashtags it won’t work !! Please help

  28. I’ve seen this solution posted elsewhere but sadly it’s not one that has worked for me! My Instagram account was linked to my Facebook from day one and hashtags always worked for me. However, the other day I had a photo removed for apparently violating the terms and ever since then hashtags do not work for me.

  29. Thanks! Even though I had an account linked with Instagram already the hashtags weren’t working. So I tried your method and unlinked and linked my Facebook account and the hashtags started to work again. ๐Ÿ™‚

  30. Why do my hashtags not become highlighted and embed a link when I post?? Frustrating!! I am linked in with Facebook

  31. This isn’t working for me. I followed your instructions and it simply won’t work.. This is a real bummer seeing that the account I’m having trouble with is my companies account.

  32. I’ve tried SO many things! i’ve tried this, and found a website telling me to use iconosquare or whatever it’s called from a web browser, delete the comments with hashtags that don’t work from the web browser then reupload them from the phone app… i was so sure that when i found that solution it’d work… but nothing. i’ve linked and unlinked my fb, logged out of my account, restarted my phone, deleted and re-installed the app…. no luck. GAH. if anyone has found a solution yet please let me know!

  33. Here’s the problem I’m having….. When I first post a picture and use several hashtag everything works okay. I used to be able to go in and either add hashtags or replace hashtags with different ones (always staying under the 30 limit). For some reason now when I try to add hashtags after posting, my photos do not appear in the hashtag feed. And I also have my account linked up with Facebook

  34. YES!!! It worked!! I’ve had this problem for over 3 years and never knew how to fix it. Amazing!! Thank you so much! Please repost and share with everyone!

  35. I can’t find a sharing option on the Instagram settings? But I connected my Facebook to my Instagram account and it’s still not working ๐Ÿ™ I’m a iPhone user

  36. Hey! thanks for your article. I wanted to ask your or anyoneโ€™s help please I’m going nuts lol. yesterday for the first time when i commented hashtags right away right after i posted my (food) pic, it didnt work (it usually always does). none of the hashtags are broken or banned. my photo doesn’t even come up under the location tag. my profile is on public, i tried unlinking then again relinking my account to my Facebook profile. i have under 30 hashtags. i tried deleting the ig app, updating the software on my phone, re-downloading the ig app, deleting and repasting the tags on my pic, nothing works! even worse, when i tried commenting one of my old photos with a random tag, it didnt show up even when i scroll all the way down to recent posts where it should be. (I recently blocked a bunch of people on ig I’m not sure if my tagging ability was blocked because of that or what). PLEASE HELP.

  37. Not working for me.

    Created a new account today. It was fine in the first few minutes. Then suddenly, all my 4 photos don’t appear anywhere in searches. I am not using any popular hashtags.

  38. i have connected my fb account with my instagram acc but still my hashtags do not work. i am not using any third party to upload my pics on my instagram acc. I have made a personal hashtag with my name as i am an artist (painter) but it does not show public posts tagged with that hashtag. It shows 42 public posts when I search for my hashtag but it shows only 1 that too from some other user who used my hashtag for my work. I am so frustrated and do not what to do.

  39. Wanna know your opinion.
    Actually I don’t use facebook but to solve this problem I created a facebook account but I wont add some one or I won’t share something on Facebook as an active user. I’ll be just logged in and connect my instagram to this FB account.
    It would be helpful to solve it or Need an active Facebook?
    By the way ลŸnstagram my real name and Facebook real name wont be the same will be nicknames.
    thanks

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