If you decide to make your account private, it means that you don't want just anyone to follow you – this forces any user who wants to follow you to send a request first so that you can accept or deny it. If you decide to make your account public, anyone can follow you without having to send a request.
How to recover deleted follow requests on instagram (2024)
Note: If you're not keen on growing your profile, it's probably best to leave your account private. If you are, you need to make your account public so people can follow you without going through a process.
If your account is private, every person who sends a request to your follow request will be sent in your message section and you can decide whether to accept or decline their request.
Sometimes when it comes to accepting someone's follow request or rejecting it, you can accidentally do the opposite of what you meant because the buttons are so small.