Can You See What Someone Likes on Instagram?

Quick answer

That's the honest answer. The rest of this page shows what does still work.

What the Following tab used to show

Long time users remember a tab that showed exactly this.

I read Engadget's report from the week it disappeared. The Following tab showed new likes and comments from people you follow, plus new accounts they'd started following.

It sat inside the activity screen, next to your own notifications. You could scroll through what your friends had been liking all day.

Instagram started removing it in October 2019.

Why Instagram removed it

I found the reason in Instagram's own words, from Instagram executive Vishal Shah.

He said people didn't always know their activity was surfacing. The tab was surprising users when their likes showed up in front of friends.

Instagram also said the feature wasn't getting much use. Shah called simplicity the driving factor.

So it wasn't a bug or a temporary change. It was a deliberate privacy decision, and it hasn't come back since.

Check one post at a time

Here's what still works. It's slow, but it's real.

Open a post you think they might have liked. Tap the likes count or the line under the post that names who liked it. Scroll or search that list for their username.

If they're on it, they liked that post. If they're not, they didn't, or they unliked it.

This only answers one question at a time. It can't tell you what else they liked around the app.

Reels work the same way

Reels follow the same rules as photo posts.

Open the reel, tap the like count, and you'll get the list of accounts that liked it. Search it for the name you're looking for.

The same limits apply. If the creator hid the count, or the account is private and you don't follow it, you won't get far.

Reels tend to collect far more likes than photos, so the list can be long. The search box inside the list saves a lot of scrolling.

The "Liked by" line

Instagram gives you a small shortcut on posts in your feed.

Under many posts, you'll see a line like "Liked by" followed by a username and "others". Instagram often picks a name you know for that line, like someone you follow.

So if a friend's name appears there, you've just learned they liked that post.

You can't search it or filter it. It shows up when it shows up. But it's the closest thing left to the old tab.

When the likes list is hidden

Some posts won't let you check at all.

Instagram lets people hide like counts on their own posts. When an owner does that, you won't see the number, and the likes list may not open for you.

Private accounts are the other block. If an account is private and you don't follow it, you can't see its posts, so you can't see who liked them either.

In both cases, there's no workaround. That's the owner's choice.

Comments are easier to find

Likes are quiet. Comments aren't.

If someone comments on a public post, the comment sits there for anyone who opens it. That's often more telling than a like anyway.

There's still no search for "every comment by this person". You'd have to find the posts first.

If you're trying to see comments without logging in, our guide to seeing Instagram comments without an account covers what shows and what doesn't.

Who gets told about a like?

Only one person hears about a like: the owner of the post.

When you like a post, its owner can get a notification, unless they've turned those notifications off. Nobody else gets an alert.

Your followers aren't pinged. The people who follow the owner aren't pinged either.

So a like is quiet, but it isn't secret. It lands in the owner's notifications and sits in the post's likes list for as long as the post is up.

What about their story likes?

Story likes are a different system.

When someone likes a story, only the person who posted it sees that like, in their viewer list. It doesn't show up for anyone else.

So there's no way to see which stories a friend liked, unless it's your own story.

Our explainer on who can see Instagram story likes goes through exactly who sees what.

Can people see what you like?

The same rules work in reverse, and that's worth knowing.

Nobody can pull a full list of your likes. That tab is gone for everyone.

But anyone who can see a post can open its likes list and find your name there. And your name can appear in the "Liked by" line for people who follow you.

So a like is never fully private. It's just hard to find in bulk.

If that bothers you, like less, or like from an account you keep separate.

Your own likes are easy

There's one list Instagram will happily show you: your own.

Open your profile, go to Your activity, and look under Interactions for Likes. You'll see the posts you've liked, newest first, with options to sort and filter.

You can unlike from there too, which is handy for tidying up.

It only works for your own account, though. There's no version of that screen for anyone else.

Beware of "likes tracker" apps

Search app stores for a way to see someone's likes and you'll find plenty of promises. None of them can do what they claim.

The Following tab is gone. There's no feed of other people's likes for an app to read.

Many of these apps ask you to log in with Instagram. That hands them your session, and it can get your account locked.

If an app promises someone else's full like history, close it. The promise alone tells you it's not honest.

What a viewer can and can't show

A web viewer is useful for a different job.

The PeekStories viewer shows public stories, highlights, reels and posts without logging in. That lets you look at a public profile without your account being involved.

It doesn't show likes. No viewer can, because Instagram doesn't publish that list.

We'd rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise. Use a viewer to see what's public. Don't expect it to see what isn't.

Followers are a different story

People often search for likes when what they really want is someone's connections.

That's more visible. A public account's follower and following lists can be opened by anyone who can see the profile.

What you won't see is the order they followed in, or a feed of new follows. That went with the same 2019 tab.

Our guide to seeing someone's followers without following them explains what's open and what isn't.

Why people keep asking

This question comes up constantly, and it's easy to see why.

For years, the answer was yes. A lot of people still remember scrolling through a friend's likes, and some assume the feature just moved.

It didn't move. It was removed.

Old guides online still describe the Following tab as if it exists. If a page tells you to tap a Following tab in 2026, it was written before October 2019 or copied from something that was.

What to do now

Here's the realistic approach.

If you want to know whether someone liked a specific post, open that post's likes list and search it.

If you want to know everything they like, you can't, and neither can any app.

And if you're worried about your own likes, remember they're visible one post at a time to anyone who can see the post.

That's the whole picture. It's more private than it used to be, on purpose.