How to see who views your reels

• You can't see who views your Instagram profile, but you can see who views stories and videos. 
• For Instagram stories, you can see exactly who viewed your story while it's still live.
• For video posts, you can only see the total number of views and users who've liked the posts.

While you can't see who viewed your Instagram profile, there are two ways you can track the viewers of video content you post on Instagram.

To see who viewed a video on your Instagram story, you'll have to tap the story while it's still live. The total number will appear in the bottom left hand corner. Tap to scroll and view the names of all the users who've watched the story.

For a video posted to your profile feed, tap the label underneath the post. Unfortunately, you can only view the total number of views but not the individual user names. You can, however, view the users who have liked it and, thus, have viewed it.

Here's how to see who viewed your Instagram videos.

Can you see who views your Instagram? 

Instagram offers no way to see who has visited your profile. 

While the list of Instagram profile visits is hidden, you can get a pretty good idea of who has been checking you out when they interact with one of your stories or video posts. 

How to see who viewed one of your Instagram stories

1. Open Instagram on your mobile device.

2. Tap on Your Story – the icon with your profile picture – in the top left hand corner. You can also access your story from your profile page. Both will show a colored ring around your circular profile picture.

3. Tap Activity in the bottom left corner. 

4. You'll see a pop-up with the number of viewers and a list of the people who viewed the video. You can scroll through the list to see their names.

1. Open the Instagram app on your mobile device.

2. Tap the profile icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

3. Find the video you want to see the views for and tap it.

4. Underneath the video, you'll see a total number of views as well as a few of the names of those who liked it. Tap on these labels to view more details.

5. In the details, you'll see the total number of views listed again at the very top; the individual viewers' names are not accessible. Scroll the list to see the names of everyone who liked the video, or use the search bar at the top to save time and search for a specific person.

Marissa Perino is a former editorial intern covering executive lifestyle. She previously worked at Cold Lips in London and Creative Nonfiction in Pittsburgh. She studied journalism and communications at the University of Pittsburgh, along with creative writing. Find her on Twitter: @mlperino.

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You cannot see who has watched your Instagram Reels videos. And any third-party app that tells you otherwise is lying.

In August of 2020, Instagram released their TikTok clone “Instagram Reels“. This feature allows users to create short “Reels” and release them to the public. Once a video is published, you will be able to see who liked or commented on your video. However, you will notbe able to see who viewed it.

If you look at the bottom of your Reels video, you will see that there is no option to see a list of viewers:

This is by design.

The reason behind this is pretty simple. Because the video will be released to the public, there is always the chance that it will rack up thousands of views. Consequently, providing a “list” of viewers may prove to be an unnecessary technical headache for Instagram.

Think about it. Such a feature would prove to be useless after a certain number of views have been reached. A user would have to scroll for quite some time just to see if someone had watched their Reels video.

You’d end up scrolling through an endless list of random strangers that you didn’t even know existed before.

This begs the question: Why would Instagram go through the bother of building server infrastructure for a feature that would become unusable after a certain number of views?

Another huge issue is privacy. When you like or comment on a Reels video, you are putting yourself out there. You are OK with the fact that the creator will see your “interaction” with their video. However, when you are just browsing videos, you might not want some stranger in Ohio to know that you just watched his stupid lip-sync video.

This brings me onto my next point.

Allowing people to see who viewed their Reels videos could cause drama.

In a previous article about screenshotting Instagram stories, I pointed out that Facebook tends to avoid features that could cause drama or friction.

If the Instagram app allowed you to see who looked at your video, then you’d potentially be able to figure out which friends viewed it and ignored it.

“OMG, she looked at my video but she didn’t even like it?!” “Dave is supposedly my friend, yet he didn’t give my last video any support.” “Is Lisa mad at me or something? She looked at my Reels video last night and ignored it.”

You get the point.

You might think that I am exaggerating about how petty or anxious people can be when it comes to social media.

However, this is sadly not the case. You’d be surprised by how certain people can become fixated on who did and who didn’t like their posts.

With Instagram Stories, things are different. Reactions to Stories are a private matter between the person who uploaded it and the person who is responding. Unlike public posts, nobody feels as if they haveto react to an Instagram story.

TikTok doesn’t allow you to see who viewed your videos.

Lastly, but not least, Instagram Reels is a clone of TikTok. If you have ever created a video on TikTok before, then you will know that the app does not let you see who viewed your videos. This begs the question: If TikTok does not provide such a feature, why would Instagram bother to do so?

Related: Can you see who viewed your Instagram page?