Keeping aside its endless recreational benefits, Instagram has glued many people into a cycle of mindless scrolling and stalking. We’ve all snooped into the accounts of our crushes, exes or potential matches, brimming with curiosity to get their life updates. Whether it’s screenshotting (or even watching) someone’s stories or DMing someone’s posts to your pals, there are a few ways you might get caught in your stalking escapades. But does Instagram notify users who viewed their profile?
Thankfully (or not), Instagram doesn’t have any in-built feature that allows users to check who has been investigating their profile, ensuring the anonymity of everyone on the platform. While certain third-party apps claim to breach this privacy and help users get detailed footprints of their Instagram handles, they need more credibility if they actually work.
How can you see who viewed your Instagram profile?
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Monitor your Instagram stories/highlights
The best and the most hassle-free way of figuring out who viewed your Instagram profile is to review the list of people who regularly view your stories. If you find any malicious account or someone who doesn’t follow you constantly tracking your feed, this might be your stalker.
The only limitation to this feature is the 24-hour time limit, as the stories and their viewers disappear post that. Even if you add these stories to your highlights, you’ll only be able to see who viewed them within the first 48 hours, post which the viewers’ list is gone forever.
After figuring out the wary users, you can block or hide suspicious users from your stories. You can also create a ‘close friends list’, adding only trusted accounts to view your updates.
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Switch to Instagram Business account
After switching to a business account, Instagram helps you access important information via the ‘Insights’ tab. This additional feature, which is not accessible for personal accounts, allows influencers, companies, and other business pages to build their marketing strategy.
A business account provides you with the location, age range, gender and other details about users visiting your profile. But it will NOT REVEAL THEIR NAMES. So, if that’s the sort of data that’ll float your boat, go ahead.
Here’s how you can set up your Instagram business account:
- In settings, go to Account and tap Switch to a professional account.
- Select a category that best describes your business, then select ‘Business’, and you’re good to go.
Please note that Instagram doesn’t provide historical data and will only gather information once your business profile is set up.
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Try third-party apps with caution
If you want to find out who’s visiting your Instagram profile, try your luck with third-party apps. These apps claim to help you discover profile views once you give them access to your Instagram account. But with their questionable reliability, we suggest you stay wary of them. Available on both App Store and the Play Store, these applications not only put your privacy in jeopardy but hardly succeed at their claims. Here are a few of them:
Social View for Instagram: While the app promises to show you Instagram profile views, make sure you read the reviews before giving it a try.
Follower Analyzer for Instagram: This application claims to help you track your follower details and reveal who unfollowed you on Instagram among other things. Again, there’s no credibility to it.
While these tips might help you stay alert of stalkers, the best way to prevent someone from viewing your profile is by making it private. Even if your account is private, make sure to churn out all the unknown contacts in your list and steer clear of unwanted followers.
