Many people decide to keep their Instagram accounts private, it’s the right thing to do. However, seeing as Instagram is currently the largest social media platform on the planet, there could plenty of reasons why someone might want to view a private profile without following it.
- Normally you cannot view private Instagram profiles without following them.
- To follow someone, visit their profile on Instagram and click “Follow”, after they accept your request, you’ll see their photos and videos.
- If you don’t want to follow them from your main account, you can always create a second profile as described below.
- There are also websites online that show the option to view Instagram profiles, photos and videos. The most commonly used private Instagram viewers are listed below.
That’s what you want to know: is it possible to bypass the infamous “This account is private” screen without actually pressing on the Follow button?
There isn’t a simple yes/no answer to this question because even though there are indeed many unofficial methods to see someone’s private Instagram profile, they aren’t a perfect solution and they might not suit everyone’s needs and requirements.
Seeing as in the United States alone, Instagram is regularly visited by approximately 119 million people each month – 56.4% of whom are women, it makes sense that unexpected events occur and for some reason a user might, for example get locked out of their account. They might have valuable photos stored there.
If Instagram doesn’t help you, then our overview of the most popular three ways to view a private Instagram accounts posts and photos without following it from your main profile, or perhaps even without following it at all.
Viewing Private Instagram Profiles: Your Options
If you thought that by setting your profile as private on Instagram, only users you allow will have access to your material – I don’t have good news for you. It turns out that you can easily generate links to this private content, and then access private Instagram accounts without permission of their owner!
Even if you set your Instagram profile as private anyone with a good mindset and a bit of spare time could look at it! It’s getting harder and harder to stay secure on the web – it’s no secret. If you’re following the websites dedicated to the topic, you probably know that there is hardly a day when something doesn’t leak out.
However, for years now the rule of thumb has been that you should be careful… very careful when sharing your private pictures on the internet. At least as careful as you reasonably can. Because as today’s Instagram issue shows, making your Instagram profile private doesn’t provide you with much security at all.
Create A Second IG Profile
There could a plethora of reasons why you wouldn’t want to use your real profile to follow someone when you wanted to check the photos on their private account. The solution to this issue is pretty issue to figure out: create a fake account and use it to follow an account of your choice, hope they accept and view their photos that way.
Hey, I’m not judging you! I’m here to help. There is no limit to Instagram profiles that one person is allowed to create. This makes creating a fake profile to view someone’s private photos on Instagram the obvious choice for anyone who is willing to put in some time and effort to do it.
Unfortunately, if you opt for this way of seeing someone’s private Instagram account, it might take you at least a few hours. That’s because you must be believable or else your target might instantly recognize your profile as fake and block it. If you decide to it, here’s some tips that will let you gain access to the private profile as soon as possible:
- Use good quality, believable photos of a real person. Generally, it’s a good idea to use a woman’s profile, especially if your target is a guy.
- Make sure to create a good-looking profile, with more than one photo and a description.
- Sent out some follow requests and get some followers for yourself before trying to send a follow request to your target. This will make your profile stand out and look more natural.
- You might want to set your new profile to private. It might make your target more curious and more willing to accept a request from you.
Finally, once you have finished preparing your dummy account go through it once again and make sure you didn’t make some mistake. After everything is verified, you can now send the follow request to your target, and once they accept you will be able to view their private profile on Instagram instantly.
If they don’t accept your request, there is one final option that you could use. It’s not the most ethical one, but it seems to be working.
Take a look at the last way, your final option, which is below and comprises of a set of tools that claim to let you view private IG profiles without following them.
Try The Recommended Instagram Private Account Viewers
There is a couple of third-party applications that claim to have a function of displaying private accounts on Instagram, but none of them are related to the social media network itself. It’s all unofficial.
It seems like using them might the best option if you are looking for a quick, hassle-free way to see an private Instagram profile. After all, these simple tools are claiming that they have the ability to show you any account, in full, instantly, even if you haven’t followed it yet and all that without paying. Seems too good to be true, but I have decided to check it out anyway.
- https://viewprivateprofiles.net
https://appunlock.net/instagram
The number one is the online Instagram private profile viewer that has been with us for a few years already. Hundreds of people are telling stories of how they used it without any issues, and yet some are still saying that it didn’t work for them.
I tried it after I saw the popular “How to view private Instagram” advertisement and the results were very promising as after going through the instructions on their website I was able to see my friends private IG account and it didn’t take me more than a few minutes.
The other profile viewers on this list (that we try to update once a month) haven’t been tested by our team, so we can’t really say much about them other than that we found them on reputable websites with a plethora of reviews from real users who claimed that they had successfully used them this year.
In the end, you should remember that using software like this is not very ethical and even though there is no obvious risks, you should proceed at your own risk.
One thing worth mentioning is that these websites make it clear that they will not show you any profile if you don’t go through a “verification” process first. How does that work? Usually, the users are asked to perform some easy tasks such as completing a survey or downloading a free app. If that sounds like too much hassle for you then perhaps you should spend few hours to try the method Number 2.
How To Send A Follow Request To A Private Account
It might be the most obvious thing, but perhaps you’re new to Instagram and you’re not yet aware of how things work there. Well, normally to view someone’s private Instagram, you need to ask them for their permission before you can view it.
To do that, you need to visit their account and send them a follow request. If they accept, you’ll be able to interact with them. It’s like how friends work on Facebook.
How To See Followers On Instagram Of Private Account
When someone sets their Instagram account as private, by default all of the content that they published on the platform will be hidden from the public view. However, it will still be visible to anyone who follows that account.
As you already know how to follow an account, after you send a follow request to a private account, the owner of it will receive a notification and must either accept or deny your request.
You will only become a follower once they accept your request.
The good news is that the number of followers an account has is not a private information and cannot be hidden in any way. As long as you have a compatible device, you can simply access the Instagram application or website and search for the profile whose follower count you’d like to see.
Therefore, after you visit any private Instagram account, the number of followers will be clearly visible at the top of the page, next to the username.
How To See Someone’s Followers On Instagram Without An Account
Everything above also applies even if you don’t have an Instagram account yet.
You may still visit the profile and look at the pretty numbers at the top but that won’t be enough to see the full list of someone’s followers though.
For that, you’ll need to create an account on Instagram.
Once you have an account, you can visit any profile and see exactly who their followers are, as long as their profile isn’t private.
If the profile is private, you will either have to send a follow request and wait for it to be accepted or try to use a private Instagram viewer, as an alternative method that doesn’t require you to follow the account.
How To See Someone’s Private Instagram Story
There are times when we would like to view someone’s private stories on Instagram, but we don’t want to log in or we don’t want the author of the video to know about it. How to view Stories on Instagram in incognito mode?
For several years now, Instagram Stories have been an integral part of the app, and many users can’t imagine life without this feature. However, patterned after Snapchat, the app’s option has its limitations – in order to view someone’s Stories, we need to be registered and logged into the app.
A further downside is also that Instagram forces us to reveal our identity if we view someone’s story. Sometimes, we also find that the creator of the story we want to view has blocked us and we can’t access any of his photos or videos.
Luckily, there is one simple trick to view Instagram Stories without restrictions and completely anonymously. What do you need to do?
Just go to one of the sites that allow you to view content on Instagram, such as insta-stories.com or viewprivateprofiles.net. Then enter the name of the user whose content you want to preview in the search box, and you’re done!
How does it work? The aforementioned sites will likely use coding to cleverly bypass the restrictions imposed by Instagram. If a registered account is enough to preview content, they can probably use their bots for this purpose as well. Remember! We have not cross-verified the safety of using such services, so you use them at your own risk.
How To View Private Instagram Stories In 2023
Of course, the method described above will not work on accounts that are private and require approval of the content creator to be followed. The only guaranteed way to view private Instagram accounts is to followed them, and one way or another, get the approval of the profile owner.
As an alternative, you can try one of the private Instagram profile viewers which definitely are capable of displaying public profiles, their photos, stories and videos. When it comes to accounts that are not public though, the matter becomes more complicated. Sometimes the tools work, sometimes they don’t, at least that has been our experience.
There is plenty of positive reviews about the aforementioned Instagram viewers but there is also some bad one’s, therefore you should be careful. Safety of these tools has been not verified, so use them with caution. Make sure to only use trusted apps.
At this moment there is no sure way to have full control over who has access to our content both in Instagram Stories and in all the other realms of the app. In the end, everything we share online could one day be hacked or extracted in some other way. Think twice about what you post on social media.
Is It Even Worth It To Keep Using Instagram?
How you answer this question depends on your own personal situation. You should carefully consider whether you are able to effectively promote your content on this platform and whether you will find people who are interested in the photos you post there.
It might not be so easy to gain followers, especially if your profile is private and without them it will quickly become irrelevant and useless.
One thing that distinguishes Instagram from other portals is the average age of its users. We can safely say that it is a social media network dominated by young people.
More than half of the people using Instagram are between 18 and 29 years old. Most of their profiles are not public and the data shows that over 80% of them are unaware that anyone can use the tools mentioned in our article to view private Instagram profile of anyone they’ve ever met without sending a follow request.
Another thing that is worth emphasizing, is that most of the active users of IG are women. Some sources suggest that their presence on this portal is estimated at almost 70%.
Another key issue is the type of published content. There is a simple rule on Instagram – minimum text, maximum visualization. What’s most important on Instagram is the photos, films and the visual stimulation they provide to the users.
Private accounts don’t help with that as they restrict what users can look at, that’s why it’s important to keep providing new users with up-to-date solutions to viewing private Instagram accounts that could be an alternative to the official Instagram follow system, as seen in the examples above.
In the end, visitors use Instagram not to acquire knowledge, they just want to have fun browsing through interesting films and photos that evoke emotions. No one will pay attention to the text content.
Hey I saw this post on my friends facebook and decided to try one of the methods you described, i.e. the private instagram viewer and (to my surprise) it has worked! Thank you so much. I am finally able to view my deceased cousins private Instagram profile, as obviously I wasn’t able to follow it… or rather my cousin wasn’t able to accept the follow request 😫😫 thank you