How to see who someone recently followed on Instagram

Instagram shows who an account follows, but not when it followed them. To see the newest follows, you need the list in the right order and a way to compare it over time. You can do that by hand, or let FollowGlance do it for you.

Why the Following list doesn’t tell you

Open someone’s profile and tap Following, and you get a long list with no dates. Three things make it hard to read:

• No dates. Instagram never shows when a follow happened.
• No clear order. The app doesn’t sort someone else’s list by date, and accounts you both follow tend to show first.
• No history. Instagram used to have a Following tab in its activity feed that showed what people you follow liked and followed. It was removed in 2019.

So the list tells you who they follow today, not what changed.

The manual way

If you only care about one account, you can compare its list yourself.

1. Open the profile and tap Following.
2. Take screenshots of the list, or note the accounts you see.
3. Come back in a few days and do it again.
4. Compare the two. Anything new is a recent follow.

This works, but it’s slow. Long lists are hard to compare by eye, and you only learn what changed between your own checks. It doesn’t work at all for private accounts, unless they approved you.

The quick way, with FollowGlance

FollowGlance reads the public list newest first, so the top of the list is what the account followed most recently.

1. Go to the home page and type the username, or paste a profile link.
2. You’ll see the profile, how many recent follows we found, and the newest 2 in full. This part is free, and you don’t need an account.
3. To see the rest, unlock the account with 1 credit. Packs start at $6.99, with no subscription.
4. Check the account again later. Checking an unlocked account again is free, and follows that appeared since the last check get a New label.

An unlocked report has these sections:

It also gives a rough split of women and men among the follows, guessed from first names. And you can turn on daily email alerts: the unlock includes 30 days, and 1 credit adds 30 more.

How the times work

Because Instagram keeps no dates, every follow tracker works the same basic way: it saves the list, checks again later, and compares. FollowGlance does this too.

The first check of an account saves its list as a starting point. Those follows are recent, but we can’t date them. After that, each new follow gets the time of the check that first saw it. The more often an account is checked, the closer that time is to the real one. That’s why we say “first seen”, and never promise exact times.

What you can’t see

Some things stay hidden, whatever tool you use:

• Private accounts. Their lists are only for approved followers. FollowGlance doesn’t check them, and you’re never charged for one.
• Exact follow times. Only Instagram knows them, and it doesn’t share them.
• Follows that were undone. If someone follows an account and unfollows it before the next check, there’s nothing left to see.

Checking an account doesn’t notify it, either. Read does Instagram notify someone when you look at their follows? to see what does leave a trace.

Use it fairly

FollowGlance only shows what an account already makes public. Use it to keep up with accounts, never to pressure or harass anyone. Our acceptable use policy has the details.

Want to compare tools first? Read Instagram follow trackers compared, or is FollowGlance free?