Despite all the diversity of online communication, lots of social media users close their apps with a lingering sense of discontent, feeling that their interactions lack the genuinely human component. In a subconscious attempt to enrich their browsing and messaging sessions, people double down on the consumed content, often repeating their profile visits and story views.

In more and more cases, the problem escalates to the point when regular users slowly turn into stalkers, driven by an obsessive idea to keep track of someone’s every post. More often than not, such a habit is accompanied by a vague sense of psychological discomfort, especially when there’s a risk that their actions may be discovered by the account owner. 

While we believe that your online behavior is strictly a personal business, we would also like to let you know about several ways of reducing your anxiety related to social media use. Note that some methods featured in the article can work both ways and will serve as a means of discovering Instagram stalkers and keeping your story view preferences to yourself.

Is it Possible to Notice How Many Times Someone Viewed Your IG Profile or Story?

Instagram developers are pretty selective when it comes to implementing new features, and it seems that adding a separate counter for each viewer of your Instagram stories is not on the agenda. Even with the significantly expanded toolbox available to business account owners, this is simply not possible. However, you may discover a whole new world of activity happening around your or anyone else’s Instagram account by using third-party Instagram viewers designed specifically for the case.

Are There Any Third-Party Apps That Have an Instagram View Counter?

For some reason, not even the most advanced tracker or spy app has an answer to the question of how to see profile views on Instagram. Our best guess is that such third-party apps and services are more viewer-oriented and focus on the task of covering the tracks of their users. 

Apps like FollowMeter used to claim that purchasing a premium means you can see how many times someone has viewed your story, but to the best of our knowledge, the feature never worked. FollowMeter, however, is not completely useless and can still show you new unfollowers or those who never followed back without having to check everyone’s profile.

Does Instagram Notify the Profile Owner When You Replay Their Story?

Nothing clicks inside of Instagram’s algorithms when you’re viewing an Instagram post or a story again, be it the second or the 100th time. Again, even if it’s an Instagram business account, they won’t see anything but the fact that you swiped to or clicked on the story from your top reel.

How Does Story Viewing Work in Terms of Notifications and Statistics?

Though you may have gotten the impression that Instagram is utterly useless in terms of post-related data, Instagram business accounts can actually provide a good dozen of metrics on stories, including total visits, reach, taps or swipes back & forward, shares, and completion rate. As you can see, the focus is clearly on crowd interactions rather than individual actions (except for emoji & text reactions), and the replay count is nowhere on the list.

What Happens When You Rewatch a Story?

Essentially, nothing, so feel free to watch it as long as it is available. Speaking of which, if someone’s Instagram story is of particular sentimental or esthetic value for you, and asking the poster for the source material is not an option, consider investing in a third-party app that will save it in original quality. Glassagram, for instance, can do that and much more, including anonymous story viewing.

Can Someone See If You’ve Viewed Their Story More Than Once?

There’s a tenacious myth that replaying stories will somehow put your account on top of the viewer list, thus letting the poster know of the repeated nature of your interactions. Let us relieve you by saying that this is not how the views work at all. Only the instance of initial interaction is important for the app, about which it will promptly notify the poster. Let’s stress that again: all that the algorithm wants is to register the original Instagram story view, upon which it retreats contentedly to its code lair, indifferent to your further interactions. 

Ways to Replay a Story and Never Let Them Know

If, for some reason, you are not convinced by our matter-of-fact statements above, you may opt to protect yourself from inquisitive looks into your history of Instagram profile and story viewing - just in case the feature eventually gets implemented. To achieve that, you may attempt to cover your activity with one of the commonly known methods devised to fool Instagram business accounts into thinking that nothing happened. Note that each trick has its merits and downsides, and none answers the question of how to see profile views on Instagram.

1. Airplane Mode

While the method is slowly going extinct on other social media apps like Snapchat owing to bug fixes, Instagram users can still try the good old combo of airplane mode and cache clearing. Our quick test has shown that this works 4 times out of five, so if you’re willing to take the risk, follow these steps:

• Step 1: Launch the Instagram app and let your feed load fully. It’s imperative that you don’t click on anything while that happens.
• Step 2: Activate the airplane mode on your phone.
• Step 3: Swipe the story reel left until you see the user whose post you’d like to view.
• Step 4: Upon satisfying your curiosity, erase Instagram’s cache from the phone’s settings. Since iPhones won’t let you do that, delete the app itself.
• Step 5: Restart the device and wait a while before turning the airplane mode off.

2. Half Swiping

Another trick that went out of fashion on most other platforms due to increasing faultiness is the half-swipe. However, we’re glad to inform you that the method is somewhat efficient on Instagram - that is, if you’re willing to sacrifice video stories in exchange for anonymity - those won’t play until the carousel turns fully. Things aren’t much better with the static images, as you’ll be able to see only about half of it without risking your secrecy. This is how the trick works:

• Step 1: Swipe through the stories while dragging your finger really slowly across the screen so as not to miss the one of interest;
• Step 3: When you caught a glimpse of it, flip back to the previous one and prepare to act;
• Step 4: Slow down even more and stop when the story is revealed to about a half. Don’t let your finger slip or the transition may accidentally complete itself;
• Step 5: When you’re done watching, reverse your finger movement and gently return the frame to the previous Instagram video.

3. Using Another Account

This one might be self-explanatory, but if it’s your first time doing that, here are some tips to help you along the way:

• If planned for a one-time use, create the account by using a disposable email address or phone number services. This will save you the trouble of unlinking your real credentials from your current profile.
• If intended for continual viewing, make sure to fill the profile with at least some data that looks lifelike. It will prevent the algorithms or other users from marking you as a bot.
• Do not post any info that might be associated with your personality if confidentiality is among your goals. Remember that the poster will see an unknown user among the viewers. If you’ve had a history of being a distant admirer, the suspicion might automatically fall upon you.

4. Don’t Leave Them Time to Notice

Lastly, you can always rely on your scheduling skills and hop into the last car of the leaving train by watching the story moments before it expires. Will Instagram notify the poster? Yes, but doing so minimizes the opportunity window they can use to check the viewers. 

The only obvious problem with this method is that figuring out the exact time the story was posted might be problematic without actually clicking on it. We recommend doing that in the wee hours when the probability of your target being sound asleep is at its highest. Happy hunting!