How To See Who Has Seen Your Story Or Highlights On Instagram

Most of the time, there's no way to know who's looking at your public social media posts. Unless someone engages with the post or mentions it to you, you won't know who saw it. That applies to Facebook posts, posts on X (formerly known as Twitter), YouTube videos, standard Instagram posts, and so on. 

There is one notable exception: Instagram Stories, which are live for 24 hours, and Instagram Highlights, which are permanently archived Stories. For the 24 hours that a Story is live and the subsequent 24 hours after, the creator can see a list of everyone who's viewed said Story. The same also applies to Highlights posts on a rolling 48-hour basis, allowing you to see who's viewed those posts in the preceding two days. It doesn't tell the creator/poster exactly how many times you've looked, just that you have, so if you're paranoid that someone will see that you've looked at a Story or Highlights post more than once, you can rest easily.

But if you're a creator and want to know who's looking at your Instagram content outside of regular posts, read on to find out.

To see who's viewed your Instagram Story while it's still up, just open it on your phone and swipe up. (If you also shared it on Facebook, scroll down to see who saw it there.) If it's more than 24 hours after the Story dropped out of public view, the process is a little more involved:

1. Open your profile in the Instagram mobile app.
2. Tap the menu button (three parallel lines) located in the top-right corner of the screen.
3. Tap Archive.
4. Scroll down to the archived Story for which you want viewer data.
5. Tap the Story in question and then scroll up like it was still an active story.

For Highlights, the process to see who's viewed the post in the last 48 hours is similar but not identical:

1. Open your profile in the Instagram mobile app.
2. Tap the Highlight you want viewership information for.
3. Tap the Seen by icon in the lower-left corner.

That's it! Now, you can get an idea of who's going out of their way to keep tabs on you if they're not already following you. If you want to learn how to view Instagram Stories or Highlights anonymously, then there are a few workarounds, though.