How to Use Blank Space in Instagram Highlights
If you look at the Instagram profiles of the world’s top creators, models, and brands, you’ll notice a massive shift in how they format their pages. They are abandoning emojis. They are deleting long bios. They are embracing extreme minimalism.
One of the ultimate flexes of this minimalist trend is the nameless Instagram Highlight.
By default, when you create a new story highlight on your profile, Instagram forces you to name it. If you try to delete the name and hit save, Instagram automatically reverts it back to the default “Highlights.” If you try to use the spacebar, Instagram deletes the spaces and reverts it back to “Highlights.”
So how do top creators get completely empty, blank labels under their little circles? They use invisible text.
The Pursuit of Minimalism
Here is an unpopular opinion: Labeling your Instagram highlights completely ruins the minimalist aesthetic.
If you have custom, beautifully designed cover icons for your highlights (like a little airplane for travel, or a dumbbell for fitness), writing the word “Travel” or “Fitness” underneath it is redundant. It clutters the screen. It forces the user’s eye to read text instead of admiring the visual hierarchy of your profile.
Removing that text entirely makes your profile look like a high-end magazine cover.
The Glass Label Analogy
Imagine walking into a pristine, modern art museum. You see a beautiful sculpture. The artist wants you to look only at the sculpture, but the museum requires every piece of art to have a label card in front of it.
If the artist just leaves the card blank, the museum will come and write the default title on it. So instead, the artist replaces the white cardboard label with a perfectly clear piece of cut glass. The museum scans the room, sees that a label is physically present, and leaves it alone. To the visitors, there is nothing there but the art.
An invisible character is a clear glass label for your Instagram highlights.
Step-by-Step: Erasing the Highlight Name
To pull this off, you need an invisible character that Instagram’s aggressive “trim” algorithm won’t delete. The best character for this specific task is the Braille Pattern Blank (U+2800).
- Copy the Glass Label: Open an invisible text copy paste tool on your phone’s browser. Locate the Braille Pattern Blank (or use the main Invisible Symbol button) and hit copy.
- Open Instagram: Go to your profile and hold your finger down on the Highlight you want to make blank.
- Edit Highlight: Select “Edit Highlight” from the popup menu.
- Delete and Paste: Tap on the “Name” field. Delete the existing text entirely. Paste the invisible character from your clipboard.
- Save: Hit “Done” in the top right corner.
When you return to your profile, the default text will be completely gone, leaving only the circular cover image.
Will Instagram Patch This?
Many users worry that if they use blank text for their highlights, Instagram will eventually run an update and all their highlights will suddenly revert to normal text.
This is highly unlikely. The characters you are using (like the Braille Pattern Blank) are deeply integrated into the global Unicode standard. They are required for accessibility formatting. If Instagram simply blocked the character to stop people from having blank highlights, they would risk breaking legitimate Braille formatting across the entire app.
Pro Tip: Do not use the Zero Width Space for Instagram highlights. Because it has zero physical width, Instagram’s database often flags it as an empty input and will revert your highlight back to the default name. Always use a character with physical width, like the Braille Pattern Blank or an Em Space!