In the last year, Instagram made significant changes to spam detection and account protection to improve the user experience. However, issues have started appearing. Instagram’s Your request is pending. Some accounts prefer to manually review followers even when they‘re public is causing confusion amongst users!
Why does Instagram say your request is pending?
As for the Your request is pending meaning, it highlights that the user you are trying to follow has enabled the Flag for review setting. The feature is designed to keep bot accounts away. Now, if Instagram, for some reason, finds your account activity suspicious, the following request will be flagged and require approval of the other user.
Remember, this only happens when your Instagram account has been flagged for suspicious activity, which includes:
- You have a new account
- You tried following too many in a short span
- Your account doesn’t have a profile picture or personal information and thus appears to be a bot
- A third-party app has access to your account leading to restrictions from Instagram
Table of Contents
What can I do when Instagram says Your request is pending?
1. Turn off Automatically confirm anyone that you follow
There’s a new setting in Instagram called Automatically confirm anyone that you follow that confirms follow requests from accounts who want to follow you. Surprisingly, disabling Automatically confirm anyone that you follow is one of the quickest Your request is pending Instagram problem solution.
To turn off Automatically confirm anyone that you follow > open Instagram > go to your profile > tap the hamburger icon (☰) near the top right> scroll down and choose Follow and invite friends > and disable the toggle for Automatically confirm anyone that you follow.
Remember, this doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s worth a try especially when you don’t know what triggered the Your request is pending Instagram message.
2. Upload a profile picture and ensure a regular posting schedule
Another trick that should work for most of you is to upload a profile picture and post regularly on the platform. This signals Instagram that yours is a real profile run by a human and not a bot account created to manipulate the algorithm.
In my experience, you will have to maintain a frequency of 1-3 posts per week for at least 2-4 weeks, and within a month, you won’t face the Your request is pending Instagram issue again!
3. Maintain a balanced follower-to-following ratio
To lift off restrictions, it’s crucial that your profile doesn’t resemble a bot. A key factor here is to maintain a balanced follower-to-following ratio. The best ratio here is 1:1, but even 1:1.5 or 1:2 should work out.
Problems appear when the follower-to-following ratio is highly unbalanced, say, 1:20 or 1:50. Consider this, if you have 50 followers but are following 2000 accounts, your profile would look like a bot not just to Instagram but also to other users.
Take the below account for example. Although it has 15 posts, the follower-to-following count is highly disproportionate in every sense, hinting that it’s a bot account.
Here, all you have to do is unfollow accounts you don’t regularly interact with and lower the follower-to-following count to 1:1 or, at the maximum, 1:2. Once done, wait for a few days and Instagram should no longer show Your request is pending when trying to follow a public account.
4. Switch to a public profile
After observing several such cases, I found a common link, the affected accounts were all set to Private. Now, when they were changed to Public, the Your request is pending Instagram error got resolved in no time.
To set the account to Private, open Instagram > navigate to your profile > tap on the hamburger icon (☰)> choose Account privacy > disable the toggle for Private account.
So, if your account, too, has been flagged by Instagram, consider switching to a Public profile!
5. Disable any third-party app’s access to Instagram
If you have previously granted Instagram account access to any third-party data monitoring or activity tracking app, it might be the reason behind the restrictions. Sharing Instagram data with other websites or apps comes under data scraping and is a violation of Instagram’s policies. So, you must turn off data access for any third-party websites and apps.
To do that, open Instagram’s website > sign in > navigate to your profile > click on Edit profile > select Website permissions from the left pane > choose Apps and websites > if you find any entries here, remove them right away.
Once done, change the account password and enable 2-FA (Two Factor Authentication) to signal that your account is safe, which will force Instagram to lift restrictions.
Disabling third-party app access also helps when you automatically start gaining bot accounts as followers on Instagram.
6. Link other accounts or add a phone number
For a few of the affected users, linking their Facebook profile with Instagram or adding a mobile number to the account helped get rid of Your request is pending on Instagram. So, try that. It won’t take more than a few minutes!
By linking other accounts, say Facebook or Threads, and adding a phone number, your profile exudes authority and legitimacy, separating it from bot accounts. In this case, it’s unlikely that Instagram will apply restrictions.
7. Wait it out
When nothing else works, the last option is to wait out the restriction on following public profiles. Instagram auto-lifts restrictions after a month of no suspicious account activity.
Remember, it’s not exactly a restriction per se. You can still follow public profiles, but it’s more like a request subject to approval. Also, the Your request is pending Instagram message only appears while following public accounts that have enabled the Flag for review setting.
How can I prevent the Your request is pending Instagram issue from reappearing?
- Don’t act like a bot: Do not perform actions that can be deemed suspicious or bot-like. For instance, following/unfollowing too many accounts within minutes.
- Follower-to-following ratio: Maintain a healthy follower-to-following ratio, preferably 1:1.
- Use the mobile app: Prioritize using Instagram’s mobile app over the website. As surprising as it may sound, the mobile app is less likely to get you into trouble.
- Restrict third-party app usage: In no case should you allow third-party apps or websites to access your Instagram account’s data.
- Ensure regular account activity: Accounts that are active and post regularly almost never get flagged by Instagram’s algorithm. So, maintain a frequency of 1-2 posts/month and 1-2 stories/week, and engage with your followers through likes and comments.
You now know how to stop the Your request is pending Instagram message from appearing while following accounts.
For those wondering why anyone would enable the Flag for review setting, the answer is simple: to keep bot accounts at bay. Bot accounts don’t engage with the content, which gives a wrong impression and can even come in the way of deals and brand collaborations.
Before you leave, find out why you shouldn’t boost posts from Instagram’s iOS app. FYI, it results in massive savings!
Do not forget to share which trick worked for you with our readers in the comments section below.