As of June 2021, Instagram no longer allows you to see a chronological list of a user's followers. There used to be a workaround that involved checking your friend's Followers list in a web browser, but that no longer works. So what can you do if you're trying to keep tabs on someone's recent followers? This minHour teaches you about some tools that can help you determine who has recently followed your friend on Instagram, as well as some ways to investigate on your own.
Is there an app or service that tracks followers?
Snoopreport.
Snoopreport is a popular option for tracking up to 100 Instagram accounts’ activity, and it’s not only limited to followers. You can also see the posts your friend liked, who they’ve followed recently, and who their “favorite user” is (the person they’ve liked content by most). Since the service is online, there’s no need to install an app or provide your Instagram credentials. Snoopreport combines your friend’s latest followers with the people your friend has followed most recently into a single “New follows” category.
- To see a sample report, visit https://snoopreport.com/en/instagram-tracking-example and click See reports under one of the example users.
- Plans range from $4.99/month (to track up to 2 friends) to $44.99/month (to track up to 100 friends). To sign up, visit https://snoopreport.com/en/instagram-monitoring-price to check out the available plans.
KidsGuard Pro.
This is an app you can install on someone’s (presumably your child’s) phone or tablet to keep tabs of how they use Instagram and other apps. KidsGuard Pro has tons of tracking features, one of which is tracking who the user has followed, who has followed them, and what they’ve liked on Instagram. You can check out a demo of the app in action at https://panel.clevguard.com/demo/my-products. To purchase the app, just click the tab at the top of the demo page.
- You’ll need access to the person’s phone or tablet to install this app. Keep in mind that it’s made to keep tabs on children, not adults鈥攁ny adult is likely to see the app on their phone and know they are being monitored. Adding surveillance apps to someone’s phone may also be illegal in some jurisdictions.
Other Instagram-tracking apps.
While there may be a variety of apps in the App Store or Play Store that claim to track your friends’ follows and followers on Instagram, be cautious about installing them鈥攊f an unauthorized app requires your Instagram credentials to log in, it will have access to your entire Instagram account. It’s possible that Instagram can even ban you for using some of these apps. Do you research before installing any apps that claim to stalk others on Instagram.
What if I don’t want to use an app?
Familiarize yourself with your friend’s Followers list.
If you know who is following your friend now, you can check back often to see if any new names appear on the list. This is going to be difficult if your friend has a lot of followers, but it should be fairly easy if their Followers list is small.
Check out the likes on your friend’s most recent posts.
This is not fool-proof, but it can help you figure out who your friend is communicating with who they may not have been friends with before. Tap the number of likes below your friend’s top 3 most recent posts, and compare the list to people who’ve liked their posts in the past. Are there any new names on the list? It’s possible they’ve followed your friend only recently, and vice-versa.