Who viewed me on instagram

Who viewed my Instagram profile' — If you're an avid Instagrammer with a public profile, this thought must have crossed your mind many times. No harm in wanting to see who's impressed by your creativity and checking you out on this popular social network. 

However, it would be naive to think that all Instgrammers follow the 'Like-and-Follow' process. Most might prefer to just check the profile without actually following the account. 

This is especially true in case of popular brands. If you're someone who loves NatGeo but don't want to inundate your feed with their photos (they post several times every day) then it makes sense to not follow them and instead visit their profile once in a day (or a week) to browse through their recent posts. 

So, how does one track such profile visitors who don't care to follow? Does Instagram let you see who viewed your profile?

The Hard Truth 

If you are one of those curious folks, then get ready for some disappointment. Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t let you know who has visited your profile. It doesn't have an in-app functionality to track your profile visitors, yet.

In case you have a business account, you can see the number of visitors you had in the past seven days, or how many users saw your posts in their feed. But when it comes to the names of visitors, the answer is a resounding No.

Instagram, like Facebook, is tight-lipped about this particular question, for obvious privacy issues. To put it simply, they have the data but they aren't sharing it with anyone, not even you. 

So yes, this means that gone are the Orkut days where you could easily see who walked into your profile. 

Third-party App Alternatives

Now that the in-app function is out of picture, what about the third-party apps? A quick Google search will reveal plenty of online tools and third-party apps both for Android and iOS that claim to offer this functionality. In fact, a Play Store search reveals hundreds of apps named accordingly. 

The question of the hour is, do these apps actually work? Nope!

Most of these apps seem to be fake and they usually pick random Instagram names and display the same to you. In fact, some of them even ask you to pay a small amount of money if you want to see more than five names.

Going through user reviews on the Play Store and App Store will paint the same picture. They pick random names and scramble them up when you check next. Not to mention that an ad will pop up every few minutes. 

The reason that such apps can't track the profile visitors is simple. The Instagram API doesn't share such information with third-party apps. While some apps do reveal who unfollowed (or followed) you recently, churning out the name of your profile visitor is asking for too much. 

The Instagram API doesn't share such information with third-party apps

Plus, you never know how these apps handle your data. Given how 'functional' these apps are, I doubt they are even secure. If you've given access to such apps in the past, be sure to revoke the access immediately, even if you don’t use them anymore or have uninstalled them from your phone.

Open Instagram's Authorized Applications page on your browser and revoke the permission you've given to any such suspicious apps. 

Cool Alternative: Instagram Stories

If you're still hell-bent on tracking your visitors, the now-popular Instagram Stories feature is the best way to do so, since the stories posted by public accounts are accessible to almost everyone (unless they are blocked from viewing it).

All you have to do is open a story and swipe up. Click on the eyeball icon and the list of people who have visited your story will be neatly displayed. This includes users who aren't following your Instagram account. 

If you notice someone creepy, a tap on the little cross icon (next to the name) will block the person from viewing your future Instagram Stories. Or, you may switch to a private account if you wish to keep your private data private. 

Manually checking the Instagram Stories on a daily basis could be annoying. However, that's the only way, at least for now. 

So, coming back to the question ....