Unfollowing someone only changes your feed. Removing a follower only changes theirs. Blocking is different, it does both of those at once, and then adds a wall on top. If you have ever blocked someone and wondered what actually happened to your follow status with them, here is the exact answer.
Yes, blocking removes the follow connection
Blocking someone on Instagram automatically and immediately unfollows them if you were following them, and removes them as a follower if they were following you. There is no separate step, no toggle to keep the follow intact. The moment you block, both directions of the follow relationship are severed.
This is different from the two actions covered in does unfollowing someone remove them as your follower, where each action only affects one direction and you have to do both deliberately to get a full separation. Blocking does the full separation automatically, as part of the block itself.
What blocking adds on top of that
Removing the follow connection is only part of what blocking does. The rest is what makes it a genuinely different tool than unfollow or remove-follower:
- They cannot find your profile. A blocked account cannot search for you, view your profile, or see your posts and Stories even if your account is public.
- They cannot message you. Any existing DM thread becomes inaccessible to them.
- They cannot see your comments or likes on other people's posts, anywhere on the platform.
- The block is not announced, but it is discoverable. If they visit a link to your old profile or a shared post, the behavior they see, usually a generic "user not found" style result, can make a block obvious even without a direct notification.
Can you follow someone again after unblocking them?
Yes, but not automatically. Unblocking someone does not restore the previous follow relationship. If you want to follow them again, you have to follow them fresh, the same as following anyone else for the first time, and if their account is private, that means sending a new follow request.
What this means if you are trying to track who unfollowed you
If someone disappears from your followers list, blocking is one possible explanation alongside a plain unfollow, them deactivating, or Instagram removing a fake account in a purge. From your side, all of these look identical: the account is just gone from your list. Instagram does not label which one happened, and neither does a before-and-after export comparison. The comparison tells you who left, not why.
If you specifically remember blocking someone, you already know the answer for that account. For everyone else who vanished, the same method applies: compare two exports and see who is missing, covered fully in how to see who unfollowed you on Instagram.
The bottom line
Blocking someone on Instagram automatically unfollows them and removes them as your follower, in both directions, immediately, on top of cutting off messaging and profile visibility entirely. It is a stronger action than unfollow or remove-follower, not a milder version of either. If an account disappeared from your list and you are not sure why, your own export will confirm they are gone, even if it cannot tell you whether it was a block, an unfollow, or something else.
