Privacy and visibility

• Location access

  The Location Access row shows whether you've allowed InkMap to use your phone's location. Your location is used to center the map on your area and find nearby studios and artists while the app is open — it isn't shown to other people or stored on our servers.

  The switch here doesn't grant the permission directly; it sends you to your phone's system settings to change it, since location permission is controlled by the operating system. For how this fits with the other phone permissions, see How notifications reach you.

• Bookmark privacy

  There's no longer a single on/off switch for your bookmarks on this screen. Your Bookmarks tab is now always visible on your profile, but what visitors can actually see is controlled inside the tab, folder by folder. Your full saved list (the Categories view) is always private — only you ever see it. Each folder you create has its own Public / Private switch, and only the folders you mark Public show to visitors. For how that works, see Using bookmarks.

• Your Events tab

  Your profile has an Events tab showing events you're taking part in. By default it's hidden — showing which events you're part of is a deliberate choice, so you opt in rather than out. Turn the Events Tab setting on to make it visible to everyone who visits your profile. Even with the tab on, you can still hide individual events from the event card itself.

  This control appears for everyone except studio accounts.

• Sharing to stories — your posts

  Under Your Posts there's a setting called Sharing to stories, reading either Anyone or Only me.

  InkMap can turn one of your posts into a single image made for Instagram Stories — your picture inside an InkMap frame, with your username, your account type and your profile address printed inside the image, so the credit travels with the file even if someone crops or screenshots it. Set to Anyone (the default), other people can make one from your posts as well as you. Set to Only me, nobody but you can.

  Why it's open by default: a story card is how your work reaches people who aren't on InkMap yet, and every one of them carries your name and a route back to your profile. Someone sharing your post can't use your caption — the card shows a short line they wrote themselves and says it was shared by them, so their words are never mistaken for yours.

  Two things worth knowing before you decide. Changing this only affects cards made from now on — anything already saved to someone's phone or already posted on Instagram is out of our reach, exactly as a screenshot would be. And posts published by collector accounts are already closed to everyone but their author, whatever this setting says, because those pictures are most likely to show the person's own body — so collectors don't see this setting at all.

  If a photograph of you is on InkMap and you'd rather it weren't, you don't need to own the post or even have an account: report it in the app, or write to us, and we'll take it off InkMap.

• Private profile and search visibility (collectors)

  Collector accounts have two extra privacy switches:

  • Profile Privacy — turn it on to make your profile private: only approved followers can see your posts and tabs, and anyone new who wants to follow you has to be approved first. Off (the default) means your profile is public and anyone can see your posts and follow you.
  • Search Visibility — by default your profile is visible in search results. Set it to hidden and you drop out of the discovery surfaces people use to find you — map search, artist/studio discovery search, and people search. People can still reach your profile through a direct link. Being hidden here doesn't lock you out of normal flows: if someone already knows your username they can still message or tag you, and functional searches (like a studio adding you to its team) still work — it only affects open discovery.

  Practitioner and studio accounts don't show these switches — your profile stays public and discoverable so clients can find and book you.

  While your profile is private, a tap on Follow from someone new doesn't follow you straight away — it sends you a request, and their button reads Requested until you decide.

  Where your follow requests appear and how to answer them: open the Notifications screen and go to the Community tab, then the Follows sub-tab (they also show under All). Each request shows who it's from with Accept and Decline buttons. Accept adds them as a follower and lets them know; Decline turns the request down. Once you've answered, the request stays marked as accepted or declined — there's nothing else to do. Turning the switch back off makes your profile public again and lets anyone follow you without approval.

Frequently asked questions

If I hide my profile from search, can people I've already connected with still find me?

Yes. Hiding from search only removes you from search results. Anyone with a direct link to your profile — or who already follows you — can still reach it.

I'm a practitioner. Why don't I have the private-profile switch?

The private-profile and search-visibility options are for collector accounts. Practitioner and studio profiles stay public and discoverable so clients can find and book you.

I'm a practitioner or studio. Why don't I have search visibility?

Same reason — hiding from the map and search would cut off bookings. Collectors can hide from discovery if they want; business accounts can't.

I set Sharing to stories to Only me. Does that remove the cards people already made?

No. It stops new ones. Anything already saved to a phone or already posted on Instagram is outside InkMap and can't be recalled — the same as a screenshot. If a particular post worries you, deleting the post also stops new cards being made from it.

Someone shared my post to their story. Will people think their caption was mine?

No. A card made by someone else never carries your caption. It shows a line they wrote and says it was shared by them, while your username and profile address stay on the card as the person whose work it is.

How do I control who sees my bookmarks now?

Inside the Bookmarks tab, not on this screen. Your saved list stays private no matter what. To share a set of saves, put them in a folder and turn that folder Public — only that folder shows to visitors, and everything else stays private. See Using bookmarks.