Liked an Instagram Post by Mistake? CEO Adam Mosseri Explains Why Unliking Won't Stop Exposing You

Anyone who has frantically unliked an old Instagram post moments after accidentally tapping the heart icon may already have been caught. Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri has confirmed that removing the like cannot always stop the other person from finding out, explaining that a phone notification may still reveal the interaction even after it disappears from the app.

Addressing the long-standing social media dilemma in a recent Instagram video, Mosseri explained why quickly undoing an accidental like cannot erase every trace of it.

The CEO's clarification has settled one of Instagram's most enduring questions, confirming what many users had long suspected.

IG CEO Explains What Happens After an Accidental Like

Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018 and regularly answers users' questions about the platform, explained in his latest video that every like generates two separate notifications: one inside the Instagram app and another sent as a push notification to the recipient's phone.

'When you do like someone's photo, we send them a notification to let them know,' he said. 'There's actually two types of notifications. There's the phone notification and then there's the Instagram notification.'

If the user quickly removes the like, Instagram can delete the in-app notification. However, it cannot retract the push notification that has already been delivered to the recipient's device.

'When you unlike that photo, we can delete that Instagram notification, but we cannot delete that phone notification,' Mosseri explained. 'So it'll still say on their lock screen, "Adam liked that photo". But if they tap on it, there's no record of it anywhere in the app.'

Why Instagram Cannot Delete the Notification?

Mosseri said the limitation is caused by how mobile notifications work rather than a flaw in Instagram itself.

Once Instagram sends a push notification, it is handed over to Apple's iOS or Google's Android notification systems for delivery to the recipient's phone.

At that stage, the alert is no longer under Instagram's control, meaning the company cannot remotely withdraw it even if the original like has already been removed from the app.

As a result, someone may still see the notification on their lock screen, but opening it leads to an activity feed with no evidence that the interaction ever happened.

'If we could delete that phone notification, we would, but we can't,' Mosseri said, acknowledging that the situation can be confusing for users.

Advice Resonates With Instagram Users

The explanation struck a chord because accidentally liking years-old posts has long been regarded as one of social media's most awkward mishaps, particularly when users are browsing the profiles of former partners, crushes, colleagues or people they have only recently met.

The video's comments quickly filled with humorous reactions from users who recognised the all-too-familiar scenario. One person wrote, 'this makes it so much more mortifying', while another joked, 'PSA for the Ex's'. Others quipped, 'So the IG notification is gone and now we just gotta get a hold of that phone', while one user summed up the collective panic by commenting, 'So basically we're cooked.'

Mosseri ended his video with a simple warning: 'Just make sure as you're scrolling through someone's content from many, many years ago that you're careful not to like anything by mistake.'

His explanation not only confirms why those awkward notifications sometimes appear despite a like being removed, but also gives users a clearer understanding of the technical limitations behind one of Instagram's most talked-about mishaps.