How to clean up your social media feed: a step-by-step plan

To clean up your social media feed, decide what you want gone, unfollow and mute the accounts behind it, mute words and hide sensitive content, reset recommendations that have gone wrong, then retrain each feed as you scroll. Here’s a plan you can work through in an afternoon, with the detailed steps for each platform linked.

Updated November 2, 2026

1. Decide what you want gone

Before you touch any settings, scroll for five minutes with a note open. Write down what leaves you feeling worse: a topic, a type of post, a handful of accounts. Common ones are rage bait, politics, sad news, diet talk, explicit posts, and someone you’d rather not see.

Then write down what you want more of. Between them, those two lists tell you what to cut and what to keep.

2. Unfollow and mute

Your feed starts with who you follow. Go through the list and unfollow anything you don’t recognize, don’t enjoy, or only follow out of habit. For people you know, mute instead: it’s quiet, and you can undo it.

3. Mute words and hide sensitive content

4. Reset what’s gone wrong

If a feed is mostly things you never wanted, start it fresh:

A reset clears what the platform learned about you, the good along with the bad, so do it after step 2, not instead of it.

5. Retrain it as you scroll

For the next week or two:

  • Use “Not interested” (or Don’t recommend channel on YouTube) on anything you don’t want, instead of just scrolling past.
  • Don’t linger, hate-watch or reply to rage bait. Feeds count attention, not approval.
  • Like, save and follow what you do want. Feeds learn from that too.

6. Change when you scroll

A cleaner feed is easier to put down, but habits matter as well. Turn off notifications, move the apps off your home screen, and see how to stop doomscrolling. For sites you want gone completely, block them in Chrome.

What the settings can’t do

  • Every platform is different, and you set each one up separately.
  • Muted words match words, not meaning, and none of them can see what’s in an image.
  • “Not interested” works one post at a time.
  • Feeds drift. A few curious clicks and the same things come back.

One filter for every feed

Remedy is a Chrome extension that does what the settings can’t: one filter, across all your feeds, by meaning. Switch on categories like Rage-bait, Political, Explicit or Sad or depressing, add topics like diet talk or crypto hype, or write your own, like “no golf” or “nothing about my ex’s band”.

It removes matching posts, comments and videos as you scroll on X, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and TikTok, plus any site you add. Lite checks text; Plus also checks images and video frames. It doesn’t block sites or limit screen time, so the steps above still matter. It runs on a computer, in Chrome.

Add Remedy to ChromeYour first day is free, no account needed. Plans from $4.92 a month. On a computer, in Chrome.

Questions

What’s the fastest way to clean up my feed?

Unfollow and mute first, because that works straight away. Then mute words and reset recommendations on the platforms that have drifted furthest from what you want.

How long does it take for a feed to change?

Unfollowing and muting work right away. Retraining recommendations with “Not interested” and what you watch takes longer, and improves gradually as you use the app.

Should I mute or unfollow?

Mute people you know, so nothing changes between you, and unfollow accounts you have no relationship with. Either way, their posts stop showing up in your feed.