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How can i search someone on instagram


How to find someone on Instagram

Instagram is an up-to-date platform with more than 1 billion users around the world. Each Instagram user has a unique profile name, which is called username. Other people can find someone by it. Often happens new Instagram users don't know how to find someone. So, this article can answer on this question. We prepare 10 ways which help you in searching a particular Instagram account.

Add to the obvious search method by username, there are other ones like search by email, hashtags, phone number or personal data. Read more about each option below.

The easiest way to find someone is to use his or her username. You can do it both from the app and Instagram website version.

  1. Open Instagram and log in to your account.
  2. Tap Magnifying Glass Icon.
  3. Type someone's username in the Search Bar. 
  4. Wait for the result of your request.

After that, you'll see all the profiles that correspond to the specified username. We recommend going to the Accounts to filter out unnecessary requests. The principle of actions is the same in the website version, but you don't need to go to the special section like a magnifying glass icon. A search bar is located at the top of the website.

There are no filters to search by age, location, gender, etc. Therefore, it's better for you to know the exact username.

This method can remind you the first one, but it's a bit different. Use it to find people on Instagram without knowing their username if you perfectly remember his or her first and last name. You have to act in the same manner.

  1. Open the Instagram app.
  2. Type the name and surname of the person who you want to find on Instagram in the Search Bar.
  3. Look at the results and try to find the right person.

But there is the catch. Some people don't add their names in the Bio. If the user, who you want to find, relates to this category, so, go to the next method.

In addition to searching for people by their username or name, you can give a try to find a certain Instagram profile by location. It's not easy as you may think! You have to manually check each publication and try to see a face of your relative, girlfriend or colleague on it. If there are no other options, this method can be used whatsoever. We prepared a little instruction, use it to prevent mistakes.

  1. Open Instagram app.
  2. Tap Magnifying Glass Icon and go to the Places.
  3. Type in the Search Bar the name of the city or town where a person whom you're looking for lives. 
  4. Choose the appropriate location and go to the page with photos.

You can filter posts by popularity or the date of publication. If the person is a fairly well-known, so search by popularity. If this is an ordinary user, search by the date of publication.

No doubt, this method to find people isn't perfect, as most Instagram users merely don't tag the location where the photo was taken. You can spend a dozen of hours trying to find, add it won't bring any benefit as a result. That's more, this feature is available only in the Instagram app.

Quite often, active Instagram users add hashtags to their posts to increase coverage. They typically capture the essence of the post or the place where the picture was taken. If you visited the page of the right person before and saw hashtags which he/she used, try to remember them and follow the instruction below.

  1. Open Instagram (app or website).
  2. Go to the Search.
  3. Find Hashtags and type this one, which can lead you to the exact page.

Well, now you have to check all the found posts. Probably you will notice the right person on the one of them. But there is a significant drawback. It's not a guarantee that someone who you're looking for used hashtags. In this way, hashtag method isn't for you.

This is the easiest and at the same time the most interesting method. All that you have to do is to find an Instagram account of a relative or friend of the person you want to find. Perhaps the right account is in their following. We guess that you know how to do it but, anyway, we'll give an instruction.

  1. Go to the page who may follow the person you are looking for.
  2. Tap Followers or Following.
  3. View the list of usernames and keep scrolling till you find the right one. You can rely on profile photos and usernames.

Moreover, to save your time, you can DM to a potential acquaintance. Ask if he/she know the username of the person you need.

Remember! If the profile where you want to find someone is private, this method won't work. This is probably the only drawback.

As all of us know, we need to provide contacts to sign up on the platform. So, you can can find someone on Instagram by phone number or email. Many users opt to the first option as it's more convenient. It's a way for you to search for your friends.

First of all, activate synchronization with contacts in Account's settings.

  1. Open your Instagram page.
  2. Go to Settings.
  3. Choose Account. 
  4. Tap Contacts syncing.
  5. Next to the Connect contacts item, move the slider to the right.  
  6. Confirm the changes and give access to the contacts.

Now let's add the phone number to your contacts.

  1. Open your Instagram page again and tap triple bar.
  2. Choose Discover people.
  3. If there are Contacts, then go to it. 
  4. And if not, then try to find the cherished user among the general list with recommendations.

There are cases when you did everything according to the instructions, but the right person isn't displayed on the list. What should you do then? Nothing. You won't find them on Instagram by phone number in this case. They used another number or signed up with email.

Have you got a photo of someone, but you don't know this is the person exactly? That's not a problem! In our digital world, there are services that help to find people on Instagram by images. Are you interested? Let's try it in Google Pictures.

  • Go to the official website.
  • Click on the camera icon near the search bar. It's noticeable, that it is much more convenient to perform all actions from a PC than from a smartphone. Upload a photo from a PC or simply specify a link to it.
  • Wait for the system to process the request.
  • After that, you'll see similar pictures and website addresses where these photos were posted. Attentively look at each web page, and probably you'll see the person who you're looking up.

Please note! You won't find an Instagram page of this person, but you can recognize his/her name or even username from other websites. Read our article to get a detailed information about different ways to find someone’s profile with a picture.

Another service that can help you is TinEye. Unlike the previous sites, you can even upload very poor quality images here. Go to the platform page and insert a link to the photo in a special field. If the image is on your computer, then use the arrow icon to download it.

Facebook and Instagram have the same owner, but not everyone knows about this. Therefore, you can sync Facebook friends with your Instagram account without a hitch.

  1. Open Instagram and tap triple bar.
  2. Find Interesting People.
  3. Find Connect to Facebook and tap Connect.
  4. Sign in your Facebook account.
  5. After that, Facebook friends will be displayed in the corresponding section on Instagram.

Now try to find the right person in the list.

The last but not the least method to find people on Instagram is to use search engines. Yes, it's time to turn to Google, for instance. Type in the search bar person's username, first and last name. Scroll through the list and try to find the exact Instagram page.

There is a fighting chance to find a link to the person’s Instagram page on other social networks. If you know how to get to their pages — great. Otherwise, you can use the same methods we described above to find someone on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or another platform.

When you succeed to get to their social page, find a lead to the Instagram profile there.

Look for reposts from Instagram. You may be lucky enough to find a repost with a direct link to the original. Then you just need to follow it. With less luck, you can find a screenshot with their Insta username in it. Then you need to type it in the search bar on IG.

Check their bio. Of course, it’s unlikely someone will give the whole list of links to their profiles there. At least, it’s not possible. But there are link in bio pages which are becoming increasingly popular, and your target almost certainly has one. On such pages, you can find everything about the person. And links to other socials are an essential part of such pages. You will find the one that leads to the Instagram profile. 

You can create a link in bio page for your socials too, it takes just a few minutes. Read about it here.

Well, we've got in deep how to find someone on Instagram. Don't worry if it's not so easier to find the right person. Remember: where there's a will, there's a way. Try each of these methods. Maybe one of them will be suitable for you!

How to Find Someone on Instagram in 2022

What is the main purpose of social media websites? Undoubtedly, it is connecting people. But how can one contact a person on Instagram if he does not follow him or her?

The only way to do that is to search for this person’s account. Here users meet another problem: it often happens that other Instagrammers imagine nicknames or abbreviations instead of their real names and it may be challenging to find someone on Instagram. You will agree that it is still possible if you are aware of some unique methods of searching people on this social media service.

Look: this article will focus on several most effective ways of finding people on IG that can be used by everyone

How to Find People On Instagram


It is not a secret that it may seem challenging to find an Instagram account of one person if there are over 500 million active users on the platform. But modern algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram provide a variety of effective solutions on how to find friends quickly and easily. This article will tell you about 11 time-efficient ways of finding necessary accounts on the second most popular social media platform in the world.

Search Bar

The first bright way to subscribe to an exact person is to use a search bar provided in the application. When you open the app, you can immediately see the icon that looks like a magnifying glass. Most Internet users know for sure that this icon is often used by search engines and Instagram is not an exception. You can also find it easily even if you use a browser to view your IG profile. What’s next?

Naturally, you should enter your account first. In fact, you had better know an Instagram username to get a desirable result. When you tap or click the icon, you will see a search bar and several options depending on what types of accounts you would like to choose. They are filtered by Top, Account, Tags, and Places. If you do not plan to use these options, it is enough to tap the search bar again and you will see a line where you can enter the username. You can limit the choice of the search results tapping one of the options offered by the filter:

  • Top. Used for all search results ranking profiles by their popularity and engagement.
  • Accounts/People. The selection of this option will provide only people or accounts in the search results.
  • Audio. Get a list of songs available in your region.
  • Tags. This search of posts based on hashtags provided.
  • Places. The search system identifies accounts close to your location.

It is worth mentioning that when you start typing the name of the account you look for, the system will offer you possible matching accounts automatically, so you can stop typing and select the one you have looked for if there is on the list. Since the number of such accounts can be quite long, use the scroll button to be able to see all of them.

You can open the necessary profile tapping it. Now it is time to decide what to do with the account found.

If it was a simple interest, you can look through the photos if it is not protected, but it is also possible to subscribe to it by pressing the blue ‘Follow’ button. Open accounts are added to the list automatically, while protected ones will get a request from your profile to approve it or not.

Location (city or place)


As it was mentioned before, the possibility to limit the number of accounts in search results by location is provided by one of the options below the search bar. It is called ‘Places’ and it allows seeing only those search results that are located in the same city where you are now. You can use this option if you make the following simple steps:

  1. Enter your IG account.
  2. Tap the search bar in your IG app or browser.
  3. Select the ‘Places’ option provided under the bar.
  4. Enter a username of the account or look through the list of all the accounts offered by the system by scrolling them.

Hashtags

One more easy way to find a post or an account associated with a unique hashtag is to use the option called ‘Tags’. It is also offered under the search bar and works in a similar way. However, it is important to remember that you should enter a keyword you try to find only with a # sign before it. It is a standard look of a hashtag on all media platforms and IG is not an exception.

There is one more thing to remember: only those accounts can be found by a hashtag that has associated themselves with it. Even if your friend enjoys makeup and shares photos of his or her works without tagging them, this account might be not added to the search results. How to find a person by hashtags?

  1. Enter your IG account.
  2. Tap the search bar in your IG app or browser.
  3. Select the ‘Tags’ option provided under the bar.
  4. Enter the hashtag with a # sign.

You will be offered a number of post with this hashtag. Click on the search result to see a list of posts with this hashtag (Top, Recent, and Reels). You can even follow the hashtag, not a person.

Facebook Contacts


If you have a lot of Facebook friends and want to follow their IG accounts too, it is possible to connect to your FB account and see who is available on IG.

It is not a secret that Instagram is a Facebook project so there is nothing surprising that these accounts are linked if they are registered using the same email address. You can add your Facebook friends to Instagram following these steps:

  1. Enter your IG account.
  2. Open your IG profile.
  3. Tap settings and select the section called ‘Discover people’.
  4. Press the ‘Connect to Facebook’ button of blue color.
  5. Press ‘Continue’ to allow the app and website to share information about you.
  6. Log in to the FB account.
  7. Press ‘Continue’ to authorize FB access to IG.
  8. Wait for a couple of seconds until your list of friends is compiled.
  9. Select the account you want to follow or tap the ‘Follow All’ button at the top of the web page.
  10. To return to the previous menu, tap the ‘Back’ button in the upper left corner of the screen.

Phone Contacts

It is possible to extend the list of familiar people to follow by adding accounts of people from your contacts. It is one of the ways how to find someone on Instagram without knowing their username since the main information used for this kind of search is a telephone number. Naturally, not all people can be discovered in this way on IG but it is still a chance to check this approach if you do not know the username. The procedure looks similar to the previous one:

  1. Enter your IG account.
  2. Open your IG profile.
  3. Tap settings and select the section called ‘Discover people’.
  4. Navigate to the ‘Contacts’ option.
  5. Press ‘Connect contacts’ to allow the app and website to sync and store your contacts on IG servers.
  6. Tap ‘Allow’ if your phone asks for Instagram access to the contacts.
  7. Wait for a couple of seconds until your list of contacts is compiled.
  8. Select the account you want to follow or tap the ‘Follow All’ button at the top of the web page. If there are no associations of IG accounts with any phone numbers, you will see a message saying ‘No contacts available’.

WhatsApp Contacts


When it comes to WhatsApp users, most of them are added to your book of contacts automatically so they will be available on the list too.

There is one more way to add contacts too:

  1. Enter your IG account.
  2. Open your IG profile.
  3. Tap the Hamburger menu button (three-line button).
  4. Select ‘Follow and invite friends’.
  5. Tap ‘Follow contacts’ and proceed with the ‘Get started’ button.
  6. Tap ‘Allow’ if your phone asks for Instagram access to the contacts.
  7. Wait for a couple of seconds until your list of contacts is compiled.
  8. Select the account you want to follow or tap the ‘Follow All’ button at the top of the web page. If there are no associations of IG accounts with any phone numbers, you will see a message saying ‘No contacts available’.

Following this procedure, you will also be able to see other options in the ‘Follow and invite friends’ section. It also gives an opportunity to invite friends by email, WhatsApp, SMS, and other popular ways.

How to find someone Instagram by email


Many users claim that it is impossible to search for someone on IG by email, but it is a great mistake.

Naturally, you can’t do that directly in your app, but it is possible to discover people IG accounts using third party services.

  1. Facebook. One of the ways to do that is to enter an email address on Facebook and find this person there. If he or she accepts your friendship invitation on FB, you will be able to connect to your FB account and add this person using the way mentioned above.
  2. Gmail. It is possible to enter the email address and get as much information about a person as possible. Some of this data can be later used for the IG account search. Also add a someone’s email to your contact list and connect contacts as we discussed above.
  3. Outlook + LinkedIn. It’s one of the ways to know more about a person using free tools. Open Outlook, add a person’s email as a contact, go to a tab “LinkedIn”. If there is any account you’ll see it. Thus you’ll get a real name and occupation.

And don’t forget to look for username using local part. For example, if you know that someone has email like ‘[email protected]’, don’t hesitate to search for ‘shadylady’ on Instagram.

However, it is not the only way to use email for getting IG accounts to follow. There are people search engines available on the Internet.

Suggested Users

If you use IG for at least a couple of days, you may spot that the system offers you profiles of people you might know to extend the list of people you can follow. However, if you have just registered or can’t see this information at the moment, you can look through the list of IG suggestions yourself. For this purpose, you can use an approach similar to the search of Facebook friends and phone contacts.

  1. Enter your IG account.
  2. Open your IG profile.
  3. Tap settings or the Hamburger menu icon and select the section called ‘Discover people’.
  4. Navigate to the ‘Suggested’ option.
  5. Select the account you want to follow or tap the ‘Follow All’ button at the top of the web page.

Your friend’s following

It is natural that you may be acquainted with people followed by your friends and you can easily find them too.

It is enough to open the profile of your friend and press on the number of people he or she is following at the moment. You will be offered two options: people and hashtags. The first one will provide a list of accounts with the ‘Follow’ button next to each of them. You can open the profile, learn more about this person or brand and follow it. The second option allows following a certain hashtag followed by your friend. If he or she does not do that, you will see a message notifying about that.

Google

You may wonder whether it is possible to search for people if you have no IG account. It is not a secret and Google knows everything and its search engine can help you find a necessary person on IG even if you are not registered there. You can discover the account by name, hashtag, username, phone, URL of the website, etc. It is enough to enter this information in the search bar!

Ask your friend

It goes without saying that some people keep their privacy and do not connect their IG accounts to FB, mobile phone or email address.

However, they still decide to follow other people and share their own posts with their own subscribers. If you want to follow a certain individual, you probably have common friends who might be aware of the nickname used by him or her. Consequently, you can ask your friend about that and stop wasting time on a useless and time-consuming search. Use a direct message, SMS, email, or any other messaging service for this purpose.

With a Picture

Searching for people on Instagram can be also manual. You can browse hundreds of accounts filtered by location or hashtag and look at the profile pictures. Despite the fact that this process can be exhausting and takes much time, you will be surprised to find out how many familiar faces you can see there.

There are situations when you know the name but can’t remember the surname. It is possible to enter this name and check the pictures of these accounts to find a person you need.

Influencers discovery

If you’re looking for a profile with more than 1 000 followers you could use search in influencer marketing tools (like trendHERO).

You can add filters like ‘category’ and ‘location’ to find someone on Instagram. It could be influencers, doctors, trainers, musicians, etc.

These tools could help you to find someone by criterias such as location, number of followers, text in bio, category and others. It could be perfect if you’re looking for a doctor or a couch. Good news – basic search is available free of charge. Try it for free

What to Do If You Can’t Find Someone on Instagram


It is possible that sometimes you can’t find a person on IG no matter how hard you try. There are several possible reasons for that and therefore, the solutions to them can be different too. If you have difficulty in finding the right account, consider the following:

  1. Check the correctness of a username if you search by name.
  2. The account you search for can be blocked, deactivated or does not exist already, so it is necessary to ask the account owner for a new username.
  3. Your own account could be blocked and you should contact this person to unblock it.
  4. Instagram may face some bugs so it is better to try the search later if you are confident that a user with such a name exists and is active.
  5. Instagram can shadow-ban certain posts, so they can become inaccessible for other users (if you search by hashtag, for example).

Conclusion

There are many different ways how to discover people on Instagram and most of them do not require special knowledge and skills. It is enough to have an app and take advantage of its features to be able to find people you would like to follow.

At the same time, there are also alternative methods of finding people on IG and they can be very effective in some cases too.

Try our free tool

How to find a person on Instagram by phone number

Surely you did not know about one interesting trick in Instagram - the social network can find a person by phone number. Let's tell you how you can quickly find a person's account on Instagram, knowing his phone number.

October 02, 2021 Miscellaneous

3 minutes, 3 seconds to read

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Miscellaneous

The search is easy, but requires compliance with important conditions:

How to find a person on Instagram

Instructions for enabling synchronization:

1. Add the phone number of the person you need to your contacts;

2. Log in to your account and click on the "three stripes" icon in the upper right corner;

3. Select "Settings" > "Account" > "Account Sync"

4. In the Connect Contact List section, move the slider to the right

Now you have synchronized your contacts with Instagram and the service will save all numbers, including the contact of the user whose account you are looking for. It will search its database. If the recorded phone is linked to a page, it will be displayed in the list of synchronized ones.

How to check the list of linked numbers:

1. Wait for the synchronization to complete and go to the "Settings" of the application again

2. From the list of sections, click "Interesting People". The profiles of the people in your phonebook with their associated numbers will be displayed first.

3. Find a user account by name and profile picture.

Please note that other users will be able to find your account in the same way.

How to remove or hide a number on Instagram

There are several proven ways to remove your phone number from Instagram so that other people cannot find your profile:

  • Do not link the page to your mobile number. We do not recommend using it because you will need a phone number to recover your account or password.
  • Link your profile to a virtual number. We also do not recommend using the method, since you can easily lose access to such a number.
  • Connect your account to a phone no one knows about. Use the SIM card with the new number to bind the number and get the verification code, then put it in a safe place. In the event that you need to restore your account, the SIM card will be at your fingertips.

Do not forget about the main rule: if you do not use the number for a long time, the operator will deactivate it. Specify in advance about the conditions necessary to save the number, such as account replenishment / calls / SMS.

The “confusion” of the latter method justifies its effectiveness: you will be able to remain anonymous, and at the same time not lose access to your Instagram page.

Why can't I recognize Instagram by number

  • The user does not have a page in the application
  • the page is linked to another number;
  • other avatars/account names or fake pages are linked in the list of connected contacts. As a result, it is impossible to determine which page belongs to your friend.

You can find the Instagram of any user by phone number in a few simple clicks. Don't forget, if you've linked a different number to hide the real one, Instagram's smart algorithm still knows who your friends are.

How to find Instagram accounts near me

Content:

So, you have just met someone in your area who you have never seen before, or someone who has recently moved to your area. You are really curious about this person and want to know if they use social media accounts. Well, that curiosity can make you look for a person all day every day until you find them on Instagram.

Instagram is the perfect place to find friends, school friends, family and people who inspire you. This is a one-stop destination for people looking for Instagrammers.

All you have to do is enter the target's username in the search bar and select the correct profile.

That's it!

But what if you don't know the username? What if you just met someone you showed interest in but couldn't muster up the courage to ask their name?

What if we told you that Instagram has a built-in feature that allows you to find Instagram accounts near you? Or, in simple terms, can you find people near you on Instagram?

In this post, iStaunch will show you a detailed guide on how to find Instagram accounts near me.

By the end of this post, whoever you're looking for, don't worry knowing that you can find them with simple Instagram clicks.

Sounds great? Let's start.

Can you find people near you on Instagram without a username?

Yes, you can search for an Instagram account near you without entering their username in the search bar. In fact, you can only do this with the app's built-in feature. If you have been using Instagram for a while, you know that the app has a location feature that allows you to track the location of someone's Instagram account.

Now this feature works wonders for those who are looking for Instagrammers from a specific region. However, this method may not work for everyone. But there is nothing to worry about! We have other methods too!

Let's start with the location feature, and later we'll discuss a few more ways to find people near you on Instagram.

How to find Instagram accounts near me

Open Instagram explore section, you will see a search bar with several options - accounts, tags, places and more. Select "places" and enter the name of the target city. Next, you'll find a message about accounts that are near your location.

This feature really works for people who live in smaller towns, because if a person has mentioned their location in their recent posts, chances are they will show up when you search for them in specific locations.

However, if you are from a populous city with hundreds of thousands of people using Instagram, the location feature will show you many accounts with your target location.

If you are looking for people in your specific area, you can enter your address here. This will narrow your search result down to the most popular accounts near you.

Here's how to do it:

  • Open Instagram on your phone.
  • Click the search bar and select Places.
  • Click on Places Nearby and select a place.
  • Look at the most popular and recent posts in this area.
  • Here you will find accounts near you.
If you want more accounts near you, turn on GPS and let Instagram track your location. Your current location is displayed automatically when you turn on GPS.

How does Places Nearby work on Instagram?

Let's say you saw someone in a mall in your city and now you are curious to know who they are, if they have an Instagram account, and under what name is the Insta account.

If they were at the mall, chances are they must have clicked and uploaded a photo to Instagram with the location tag as it's popular these days. People upload photos of every place they visit with a location tag.

Now you need to follow the steps above and enter the name of the shopping center or turn on the GPS so that Instagram automatically determines your location.

Once you find the location, check the "recent" section, not the "most popular" posts.

"Best" posts will show you only those users who have received a large number of likes and comments on their posts. The Recent tab will take you to Instagram accounts that recently posted a photo with a target location tagged.

Instagram Finder - Find People Near You (Third Party Apps)

There are many Instagram account finder apps that let you search for people in your area. These apps claim to help you find the person you're looking for in the easiest way, but there's no guarantee if they work or not. This is something you need to try on your own.

Check several third party apps, enter location and see if they work. If this does not bring satisfactory results, you can always try the built-in function.

FAQs

Does the location feature really help show nearby Instagram accounts?

This method does not always work. In fact, in most cases, people cannot find the target user because not everyone has a public account. For the method to work, the person you are looking for must have a public account and must be actually engaged in the conversation. If you're sure the target will upload their photo in that location, it's worth a try.

Is there another way to find an Instagram account nearby?

Third party applications are available but generally do not work.

Learn more