How to Make Spaces in Instagram Captions & Bios

As a daily Instagram browser, all too often I see terribly formatted captions and bios- most making the mistake of trying to put spaces between the photo caption and the hashtag section but failing miserably. Here is a simple trick for making real spaces in your posts and bios, without periods or other characters.

How to NOT do it

Chances are if you’re reading this, you already know what these look like and are seeking a better way. People do this all the time, but even major companies and enterprise accounts do this too. Here is an example from the official GMC Trucks account:

GMC / GM all rights reserved
Image property of GM / GMC

How To Do It Right

Here’s an image from my own profile with clean, empty spaces between line breaks:

correct-instagram-spacing
Hey! I’m @OptimizePrime on IG

 

Bonus: Followers See a Clean Version in Their Feed

more-tag

The spaces and hashtags are hidden under the “more” tag automatically, but are still read by Instagram search. You’ll still get all the likes, followers and benefits from using those hashtags, but this method allows them to be hidden from view.

How It Works

In a nutshell, the spaces created with the space bar are empty pixels. However there are also “spaces as characters” which do take up space. Both spaces are invisible to you, but Instagram sees them differently.

Step 1: 

Select and copy the following (the invisible spaces you need are between the brackets)

[  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀]

Step 2: 

On Instagram, write a photo caption you want to use, use the space bar once, then paste block of spaces from above and remove the brackets. Paste multiple times if you need more lines. Be sure to use the space bar once between the caption and the pasted spaces. Otherwise it doesn’t work.

Step 3:

After you’ve pasted in the block of spaces and removed the brackets, press the space again after your pasted block of spaces, and list out your hashtags. Remember- you can only use 30 hashtags, so don’t go overboard.

Protip: Edit Captions in the Notes App, Then Paste

Edit your captions outside of Instagram, such as in Notes or in a draft text message. Most of the time Instagram won’t save the entire caption when you upload the image, so do your caption editing elsewere. Post the photo first with no caption, then hit the three dots on the photo and click Edit, then paste in your new caption. If you frequently post similar content, you can save hashtag blocks in Notes app and save them for later.

Making Spaces in Your Bio

Do exactly the same thing as above, just paste in the space characters where you want them in your profile bio and test it out by saving and editing until you have it exactly the way you want it.

Next, find the right hashtags to use to get the most engagement as possible on your content.

2021 Update

The above method has worked for quite some time, and still does allow a finer level of customization. However, adding just line breaks to captions and bios just got a whole lot easier.

The new method is to use the return key, with NO SPACES between the words. This is a little un-intuitive because on the iPhone, you have to hit the shift key (arrow up) to see the return key.

Write the first line, and after the last letter hit the return key.

Instagram Marketing Tools

  • Iconosquare: Measure your followers and engagement, plus schedule your Instagram posts for the perfect post timing.
  • Shorby: Create multiple links in your Instagram bio (instead of just one).
  • PublicFast: Run influencer campaigns to access your target audience, instantly.

Postbuilder App

 

 If you’re doing this on a regular basis, I highly recommend checking out the PostBuilder App . Not only can you do spacing with ease, but you can also make line breaks, save captions, save hashtags, and schedule you posts. When growing your Instagram influence, it’s important to have consistent, high quality content, and PostBuilder lets you do this.

20 thoughts on “How to Make Spaces in Instagram Captions & Bios”

  1. Pingback: How I Grew Local Sales 400% With Just Instagram & SEO

  2. I started using grum (to save on time) and schedule Instagram posts.

    Whenever you space your captions, it somehow ignores it and squashes everything into one large caption.

    Still working around it. I will most definitely try out the tip you have shared here.

  3. Thank you SO much for this! Been looking everywhere for a way to add instagram space and it finally works! Seriously still don’t understand why Instagram doesn’t add space already smh😩

      1. Alina Jeknavorian

        I’m trying to post a song, with spaced paragraphs. I tried doing your thing and it’s just making it into one big paragraph.
        I tried copying it to notes and then posting it to Instagram but it’s not working
        Please help

    1. Next time, if you haven’t already figured this out, make sure you’re not adding normal spaces after the “Instagram spaces” before you hit enter. This ultimately cancels the space that you have pasted.

  4. Alina Jeknavorian

    Also, I’ve tried doing #2 as you’ve mentioned one space. I’ve done that in between paragraphs but to not avail 🙁

  5. So this adds line breaks for me but on the line with the hashtags they start in the middle of the line. I tried to use more/less of the bracket spaces but it will not have my hashtags start at the beginning of the line. Any tips?

  6. I’ve been doing this – but after looking at my post on my husband’s android I realize the formatting is all off…now I wonder if folks with larger screened iphones are also seeing it different…

  7. Yeah this isn’t a secret… I’ve been using empty spaces in my insta posts for over 5 years… also it’s all about the aesthetic you want, sometimes using periods or other characters to create space can work just as well it just has to be done right. Anyway, this isn’t what I was looking for, I need to know if anyone knows how to put more space in your CURRENT insta bio because it limits you to a certain amount of line now as well as characters. I like making my bios long with lots of empty space but I’m limited to about 10 lines now. Does anyone know how to get around this??

Leave a Reply to Alina Jeknavorian Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Shares
Hey there, Harris here.

Want to see what I'm up to today?

Check out my secret project here.

Subscribe!