There are a few ways to interpret this question, and so a few different answers to it. Maybe there is someone specific who you don’t want to see your profile on Bumble (no need to give me the details but I will assume this is a one-night stand that went badly or an ex whose heart you broke). If so, check out my article on whether you can stop someone from seeing you on Bumble.
If that’s not your goal, and you instead want to more carefully curate the sorts of people who see your Bumble profile, things get a little more complicated.
Bumble’s algorithm is already designed to weed out creeps, but if you want to do any more than that then you’ll have to learn more about it.
For example if, for some strange reason, you don’t want to appear to too many people on Bumble then you should simply be lazy as all hell with your profile.
If it’s half-filled out, or your photo only shows half your blurry face, then you probably won’t pop up on many feeds. And vice versa – a great profile means you’ll be shown to way more users.
Beyond that, you’ll have to start thinking about who you want to be seen by and/or who you want to avoid and predicting what they will and won’t be looking for.
This all seems sort of complicated, so I hope you have some super solid reasoning behind your personal Bumble needs!
Of course, there’s always the option of either blocking users on Bumble when you don’t want them to see you or toggling on incognito mode or snoozing.
For more info on all of these possibilities, read on! Or for a full breakdown on Bumble check out my article on How Bumble Works.
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Using The Algorithm To Control Who Sees You On Bumble
Okay, I was a little misleading with this subtitle. The truth is, no one knows exactly how the Bumble algorithm works or how to manipulate it.
There are lots of theories out there though, so let’s have a look at a few and how exactly they could help you control who sees your profile.
Firstly, we know that people who have swiped right on you will appear closer to the top of your feed than people who haven’t. So it stands to reason that if you don’t want someone on Bumble to see you, you shouldn’t swipe right on them!
I mean, that’s kind of intuitive anyway, but hopefully, the advice will still help someone out… BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
If you keep right-swiping on everyone, then you’ll be flagged up to Bumble and they’ll push you right to the back of the queue so no one can see you. As with most things in life, there is a fine balance to swiping.
In actual fact, the easiest and most fine-tuned way to control who sees you on Bumble is using your age range, filters and radius.
The algorithm is unlikely to show you to too many users who don’t fit your criteria, though if there aren’t enough users of the correct age range for another user whose own ranges overlap with that user, they may show them users whose ranges don’t.
So, if you are 25 and your age range is set at 22-35, and there’s a 37-year-old who has her age range set at 24-42.
Bumble will try to show that user the profiles of people who are 22-35 and want to see (presumably among other ages) 37-year-olds. But if there aren’t enough, or this user is a rabid swipe monster, then they may run out and show her your profile even though she’s two years over the top of your age range. Get it? Sort of? My head hurts.
Using Filters To Control Who Sees You On Bumble
Another great way of really narrowing down who will see you is using Bumble Filters. You can make it really clear who you are and who you’re looking for with these filters, especially if you have a Premium Bumble account. Free Bumble users can toggle on up to two advanced filters, and Premium users can toggle on as many as they like.
You can toggle on filters related to everything from drinking and smoking habits, whether users have or want children and even star signs. You have to answer the questions related to all these filters in your own profile too, and that way you will only appear to people who are accepting of your 40-a-day habit, six kids, a bottle of red every night, and the fact that you’re a Gemini of all things.
Using Incognito Mode To Control Who Sees You On Bumble
Bumble’s incognito mode is more of a blunt instrument than the other methods to control who sees your profile, but it’s also much easier to control and takes less time to put into action!
Toggling incognito mode on won’t totally take you off Bumble, but it means that you will only show up in other users’ feeds once you have already swiped right on them. As you may have guessed, this excellent feature is only available for Bumble Premium members!
Using Snooze To Control Who Sees You On Bumble
Snooze is available to all Bumble users. Simply go to settings and toggle Snooze on.
While your profile is snoozed, you will continue to appear to users with whom you have already matched and started a conversation.
You won’t show up in anyone’s feed or Beeline. You can snooze for a specific amount of time, or indefinitely, and you can toggle it off as easily as you toggled it on to gain instant full access to Bumble again.
Blocking On Bumble
You can also block users on Bumble if you specifically do not want that person to see you. There used to be an ‘I don’t want them to see me’ option when you choose to block and report a profile, but this has been replaced by ‘I’m just not interested’.
This option won’t result in the user being reported, but they will be blocked from seeing your profile in the future and any contact with them will also disappear.
Be careful though, once someone is blocked you can’t unblock them, so make sure it’s actually what you want to do before you hit that button!
So that basically wraps up all the different ways to control who can see you on Bumble! If you aren’t too sure if Bumble is secure enough for you, check out my top dating apps breakdown!
