Multiple Instagram Accounts: Add One, or Create a New One

Adding multiple Instagram accounts to one phone and making a second account on that phone are different jobs with different menus, and choosing the wrong one is why people end up logged out of the account they cared about.

Instagram documents them as separate flows on the same page. Work out which you are doing first.

Logging in a second account you already own

Profile, then Menu at the top right, then scroll to the bottom for Add account, then Log into existing account. Username, password, Log In. Your first account stays signed in.

The number that governs this has drifted in the guides and is worth checking against the source. Instagram writes: Keep in mind that you can have up to 10 accounts logged in at one time. Ten. Android, iPhone and the desktop version of the page all carry the same figure. The five that circulates across most walkthroughs was true once and has not been updated, which is the same pattern that keeps stale follow limits alive elsewhere on this platform.

Switching between them: Profile, tap your username at the top, pick the account.

Creating a new profile from inside the app

This is the flow the second half of the old advice got wrong, because it used to involve logging out and signing up as a stranger. It no longer does.

Profile, tap your profile name at the top right, tap Add Instagram account, then Create new account. Enter the profile name, Next, Continue.

Slow down on the next screen. Instagram offers Allow and continue, which attaches the new profile to your Accounts Center, or Create password instead, which gives it a password of its own.

Both produce a working account, and the difference is documented rather than a matter of taste. Of accounts sharing one Accounts Center, Instagram writes that it will use information across those accounts to provide a more personalized experience like personalized ads and suggesting accounts to follow across Meta technologies. Suggesting accounts to follow is the clause to weigh. If the second profile exists to be separate from the first, linking them is the thing that connects them in the recommender, and the password route is the one that matches the intent.

After that: add a phone or email, Next, Complete sign up.

Why the menu names in your app may not match

Instagram prints a warning at the top of the multiple-accounts page that explains half the confusion in this topic: We're gradually updating people to Meta Accounts. You may see either Accounts Center or Meta Account settings as the place to manage your account settings.

Two settings trees, live at the same time, on the same version of the app, differing by which side of a rollout your account landed on. So a guide with confident screenshots can be accurate and still not match your phone, and the sensible response is to read for the destination rather than the label. Whether the entry says Accounts Center or Meta Account, what you are looking for underneath is the same section about your information and the profiles attached to you.

What multiple Instagram accounts do not get you

Two limits shape what this is good for.

• Only one account is in the foreground at a time. Ten can be signed in; you are still viewing one feed, and posting to the wrong profile stays entirely possible because the switch is a menu rather than a mode.
• The 7,500 following cap belongs to each account on its own and does not pool. A second account gives you a second allowance, and using it as a way around the first one is the behaviour the cap exists to slow down.

Removing an account from the switcher signs it out of that device and leaves the account itself untouched, a distinction to hold on to before handing a phone to somebody else.

Sources

• Instagram Help Center, Add and switch between multiple Instagram profiles
• Instagram Help Center, About Accounts Center
• Instagram Help Center, How many accounts you can follow on Instagram
• Meta Help Center, About Meta accounts