How to See Someone's Likes on Instagram

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1. Can You See What Someone Likes on Instagram?
2. What Happened to the “Following” Activity Tab
3. See Who Liked a Specific Post
4. See Your Own Liked Posts
5. Why “See Their Likes” Apps Don't Work
6. What You Can Learn from Public Activity
7. The Short Version

Maybe you're curious what a friend has been liking, or you remember a time when Instagram showed you exactly that. If you've gone looking for it lately and come up empty, you're not imagining things — the feature is gone.

Here's the honest, up-to-date picture of what you can and can't see about likes on Instagram in 2026, plus why the apps promising more are wasting your time.

If your real question is about someone's broader activity, our guide on how to see who someone recently followed covers what's still visible.

Can You See What Someone Likes on Instagram?

Short answer: not as a running feed, no. There is no feature — in the app or anywhere else — that lets you watch everything another person likes across Instagram. That capability was removed years ago and hasn't come back.

What you can still see:

• Who liked a specific post: On any public post, you can open the like list and see the accounts that liked it.
• Likes on your own content: Full visibility into who liked your posts, reels, and comments.
• Your own like history: A private log of posts you've liked, in your account settings.

What you can't see: a chronological list of everything someone else has liked. That's the part people are usually chasing — and it simply isn't available anymore.

What Happened to the “Following” Activity Tab

Until 2019, the Activity feed (the heart icon) had two tabs: “You” and “Following.” The “Following” tab showed what the people you followed were up to — what they liked, and which accounts they'd started following.

Instagram removed it. The official reasoning was that most people didn't know it existed, and many were surprised (and uncomfortable) to learn their likes were being broadcast to followers. Privacy won, and the tab was retired for good.

So if an article or video tells you to “tap the heart, then Following” to see someone's likes — it's years out of date.

See Who Liked a Specific Post

This one still works, as long as the post is public and the poster hasn't hidden like counts:

1. Open the post.
2. Tap the likes count (“Liked by…”) under the image.
3. Scroll the list of accounts that liked it.

A caveat: creators can turn off public like counts in their post settings. When they do, you'll see “Liked by [username] and others” without the full list. That's their choice, and there's no way around it.

See Your Own Liked Posts

Want to revisit something you liked weeks ago? Instagram keeps a private history for your own account:

1. Go to your profile and open the menu (☰).
2. Tap Your activity.
3. Open Interactions → Likes.
4. Browse (and optionally unlike) everything you've liked.

This log is visible only to you — no one else can pull it up.

Why “See Their Likes” Apps Don't Work

Search around and you'll find apps swearing they can reveal everything a specific person likes. They can't, and here's why:

• The data isn't exposed. Instagram doesn't publish a per-user like feed, so there's nothing for an app to legitimately read.
• They rely on your login. Many ask you to sign in “to sync” — which is just harvesting your credentials.
• They fabricate results. Some show random or scraped data to look useful before hitting you with a survey or paywall.

The rule from our other guides applies here too: never enter your Instagram password into a third-party tool. No like-tracker is worth your account.

What You Can Learn from Public Activity

You can't see someone's likes, but public accounts still leave plenty in the open: their posts, reels, highlights, stories, and who they've recently followed. If you're trying to get a read on what someone's into, that's where to look — all without logging in.

The Profile Viewer pulls a public profile's content into one page, and the Recent Follows tool shows their latest follow activity in order.

The Short Version

You can't see a feed of what someone else likes on Instagram — that feature was removed in 2019 and isn't coming back. You can still see who liked a specific public post, and you can review your own like history in Settings.

Ignore any app that claims to reveal someone's full like activity; it's either lying or after your login. For everything that's genuinely public, a viewer tool is the honest way to look.