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How do you know when someone is on instagram


How To Tell When Someone was Last Active on Instagram

Instagram is one of the few social networks that notifies people when you were last seen on the app. It also shows when you’re online, when you’re typing, and so on. You can see when your friends were last on Instagram and they can see when you were last there too. Depending on your security preferences, this may be a blessing or a drawback to the Instagram application.

There are several reasons you may want to see the ‘Last Active’ status on another person’s profile. It’s a feature that lets you know if someone is available for a message or likely to respond. If you’d like to claim an inactive Instagram username, this status can provide you much-needed insight into the account.

What is Last Active on Instagram?

‘Last active’ falls along the lines of read receipts for privacy and ease of communication. A built-in feature; users can have insight into other’s messaging and online activities.

With the ‘last active’ status, you can see what friends are online, when they were last online and see if they uploaded anything new.

Last Seen on Instagram

You can only see the last seen status on accounts of:

  • People who follow you
  • People who you’ve had direct messages with

If you don’t meet these criteria, you won’t be able to see when someone was last online.

The active status will show up in a few different ways. If you see a green dot next to their username and profile: they are online at that moment. You can also use the Instagram messaging service to get information for when an account or user was last online.

Only people you are following can see this data. It’s a small distinction but an important one as it allows a semblance of control over who sees what.

How to See ‘Last Seen’ on Instagram

To see other users’ last active status follow these instructions:

Open Instagram and select the paper airplane icon in the top right to access your Inbox.

Check beside each message thread to see when the person you messaged was last on Instagram.

This status isn’t in real-time but is updated every few minutes. So if it says someone was last online 6 minutes ago, it could be anything from 5 to 10 minutes, but the time given is close.

Turn off Last Seen in Instagram

If you’d like to hide your active status on Instagram you can. Those visiting your DMs or profile will be unable to see the key indicators we’ve discussed by turning your active status off.

This seems to be a mechanism to keep you from lurking and seeing what others are up to without having to reveal anything yourself. I think this is a fair system and encourages people to be as open as they can be while still offering the opportunity to be private when necessary.

To turn off Last Seen, do this:

Open Instagram and tap on the profile icon in the lower right-hand corner

Tap the three vertical lines in the top right-hand corner

Tap on ‘Settings’ then ‘Privacy’

Tap on the option labeled ‘Activity Status’

Toggle ‘Show Activity Status’ to off.

By doing this, you’ll also turn off your ability to see others’ last active status as well. If there’s someone, in particular, you’d rather hide this information from you can use Instagram’s blocking option.

Even if you’ve had direct messages in the past, they won’t be able to see your profile information including your last seen status.

Why Can’t I See Someone’s Last Active Status?

If you’ve previously communicated with or followed someone on Instagram, yet you aren’t able to see their last seen status, there may be a few reasons.

  • The person you’re interested in may not be following you – as we can only see the status for those who we’re following, the same applies to others.
  • You’ve never had a private conversation with them – If you’re not followed by someone and you’ve never had a DM conversation with them, you won’t be able to see this information.
  • They’ve turned their last active status off – Assuming you meet the above-listed criteria if you’re still unable to see their status, it’s likely because they have it turned off.
  • The user has blocked you – This one is simple to spot because you will no longer see their Instagram profile either.

Understanding the reason behind your inability to view the last seen status of an account will provide you insight into how to fix it. You can always ask the person you’re communicating with if they’ve turned the status off.

Some users have explained issues after updates. It’s not unheard of that bugs will affect this feature. If this is the case you can always wait it out or contact Instagram support.

Last Seen & Privacy

Some Instagram users are concerned about privacy while others enjoy the feature. The status does have some benefits.

First, Instagram only shows the last seen status to people you follow or direct message, and no one else. Your random followers won’t be able to see it unless you follow them back. If you don’t want individuals to see when you’re online, don’t follow them.

Second, it allays some of the anxiety that comes with social media. Namely that of the delayed response. There are a lot of Instagram users out there who will begin to panic or become angry if you don’t respond to a DM or messages within 30 seconds. Showing them that you haven’t been online since yesterday is the ideal way to avoid this awkwardness.

Third, if you use Instagram for business or promotion, responding quickly is important there too. Having it plain to see that you haven’t been online all day will help manage the expectations of anyone who wants to talk to you without causing them to think you’re ignoring them.

There is of course a case for letting out TMI by allowing Instagram to tell the people you follow when you were online. Compared to the information we willingly release about our whereabouts and activities on social networks and the fact you can control who sees it negates a lot of this. Plus, you can disable it whenever you want a little alone time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I tell if someone turned off their activity status?

Of course, it would be a privacy violation if Instagram told you someone turned off their activity status so the company has chosen not to notify other users when someone takes advantage of the option. If you’re curious about whether someone you’re following has theirs off all you need to do is send them a message.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eWhile it isn’t foolproof, if your friends’ status isn’t showing they’re online, go ahead and send them a message. If the ‘Seen’ option appears, they’re online. This is about the only way to know for sure if someone is unwilling to disclose their online activities.

How accurate is Instagram’s activity status?

Instagram’s activity status is similar to GPS and other online features that help you track other people’s activity. Meaning, it is flawed in a sense. For example, some users receive Snapchat’s u0022someone is typingu0022 notification when their friend has only opened the message. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eThe reason for these irregularities on Snapchat is because the app is designed to pick up on certain characteristics and behaviors that assume you’re online. So, a friend may have opened Instagram, then switched to another app or locked their phone and put it in their pocket which means they aren’t technically active on the app. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eOverall, the activity status on Instagram appears to be relatively accurate, but there is always room for error.

How To Know If Someone Is Online On Instagram

Even though Instagram is mostly known for sharing photos and videos, we all message our friends there too and a lot of us wonder how to know if someone is online on Instagram.

Most people are in the app everyday and a lot of us wonder why sometimes we don’t get responses to our messages.

Fortunately, Instagram now has  an “online” feature like its siblings Facebook and Whatsapp.

So, if you are looking for a way to see if your friends or crush is online on Instagram we listed here a few ways you can find out.

Table of Contents

How To Know If Someone Is Online On Instagram

To know if someone is online on Instagram is pretty easy if you and the other user have their Active Status active. Just follow the next steps.

  1. Open the Search section and type their username
  2. Select their profile from the results
  3. Open their profile and tap on Message
  4. In the messaging screen you should see “Active Now” under their username
  5. If the user was active a few hours ago, you will also see it there
This is how you can see if someone is online on Instagram

Another way to find out if someone is online on Instagram is to check all your active contacts in the Messages section.

Here, if you have “Activity Status” enabled, you will be able to see at the top all the users active at that moment. 

See all Active Now contacts on the Messages screen

How To See When Someone Was Last Active On Instagram?

Same as Active Now, to know when someone was last active you and the other user will have to have enabled “Activity Status” on their profiles. If you both do, you can find out when they were active on the DM screen under their username.

Also, in the Messages screen, you will be able to see under your contacts username, when it was that they were last active.

This of course, will only work for those who don’t have their status hidden.

Can You See If Someone Is Online On Instagram?

If you and the other user have “Activity Status” enabled on their profiles you can find out if someone is online on Instagram by going to their DM’s and see “Active Now” under their username or they can also appear in the top bar in your Messages screen.

When you or the user have the “Activity Status” disabled then you will have to try other alternatives. Below we will show you how else you can check.

Then you can decide whether you are going to use any of those features to check and confirm whether someone is online on Instagram or not.


Alternative Ways To Check If Someone Is Online

Use DM Activity Status

As discuss above, to access this feature, you will need to log into the Instagram account. Then you will need to go to the profile of the person where you want to see the DM activity status.

 On the profile of the other person, you should click on the “Message” button. Then you can get into the conversation.

On the conversation, you can inspect the top bar containing the username, where you can see activity status. For example, if the other Instagram user is online, you will be able to see a small green colored dot, located next to the profile picture. If not, you will be able to see the last online status. 

However, you cannot use this feature to check the last seen status of all the Instagram users. You will only be able to use this feature to locate the last seen status of people who follow you on Instagram. 

DM Activity Status Can Be Hidden

It is also important to keep in mind that DM activity status on Instagram can be hidden. If you don’t want someone to see whether you are online on Instagram or not, you will be able to hide the status. In order to do that, you will need to move to Instagram settings. 

You will have all the freedom to tweak the settings of your Instagram account based on your preferences. However, managing settings on Instagram can look a bit complicated. That’s because you can find numerous options within Instagram settings.

Once you go to Instagram settings, you will need to tap on Privacy and Security Settings. Inside there, you can see an option named “Activity Status”. You can use this feature to turn off the Active Status of yourself on Instagram. 

Once you do that, no other person will be able to see whether you are active or not on Instagram. You just need to tap on a button and activity status will be turned off.

If you don’t see the DM activity status of a user who follows you, there can be two scenarios. Either the user has turned off the activity status through settings, or that person has not logged into the Instagram account recently. 

Look For The User In Facebook

You may think about searching for the last seen status of an Instagram user through Facebook as well. if that person has added you on Facebook, you can use this feature to check the last seen status. Most people tend to switch from Instagram to Facebook and vice versa when they are browsing social media. 

If a person logs into their Facebook account, you will be able to get that tracked through the Last Seen status on Facebook.

If you have the messenger app installed on your phone, you will be able to use this feature to locate if someone is online on Facebook or not. You can launch the messenger app, and then move to the second tab on the bottom.  

If you are not active on messenger, you will need to make yourself active before you can look for the active status of another person. Then you can scroll through your friends and see if that person is active or not. People who are active on Facebook or message will be displayed here along with green colored ticks.

This is not a 100% accurate method available for you to check and verify if someone is online on Facebook. However, we can recommend you use this feature and check whether someone is active on Instagram or not based on assumption. 

Check If The User Has Liked A Recent Post 

You can also check and see if the person you focus on has liked a post recently. There are multiple methods available for you to check this. For example, you will be able to go through the follower list of the person. 

Then you can browse through the recently uploaded posts in those follower accounts and see if the targeted user has liked any of those posts. When you are going through this process, you will have to deal with numerous challenges.  

For example, you will not be able to see the posts on Instagram private or muted accounts. On the other hand, you will have to go through the profiles individually one by one. This is going to consume a considerable amount of time from you as well. 

Instagram used to have the Following Activity Tab which made this option really easy to follow to find out if someone was active but it was removed back in 2019.

Hence, you should keep that as the last option to check if someone is online on Instagram or not. 

Final Thoughts

Follow these methods and you will be able to see whether you are lucky enough to see the online status of a user on Instagram. Even if these methods don’t provide 100% positive results at all times, it doesn’t hurt to try them. 

We are not sure whether Instagram will introduce any such feature to see the online status of another person in the future but in the meantime, you can try the tips above.

How to find out when a person was on Instagram

Content

  • 1 An easy way to see the time of the last visit
  • 2 If the status of the last visit is not visible in Direct
  • 3 Look at the time of the last publication and other indirect signs

Instagram has already become a full-fledged messenger: there you can communicate with people by sending both text messages and media files (photos, videos). In the mobile application of the service, you can also see when an account was online (online) for the last time. However, this information is not located on the profile page, as is usually the case in social networks and instant messengers. nine0003

An easy way to see the time of the last visit

The main working method is to open a list of dialogs (section "Direct"). It's easy to do:

  1. Go to the news feed in the mobile application: click on the house icon on the panel below.
  2. Tap on the arrow on the top bar on the right. Or swipe your finger across the display from right to left.
  3. In the list of conversations, find a chat with the person whose information you want to see. Pay attention immediately to the profile photo in the list. If there is a green dot there, then the person is now online. nine0006
The time of the last visit is displayed in "Direct"

If there is no dot, look at the chat item as a whole: the line to the right of the photo should contain the status "I was online 13 minutes (for example) ago. " If the person has not been online for a long time, it will say “Last activity 1 hour (for example) ago”.

If you have not previously corresponded with a person, naturally, you will not have a chat with him in Direct. In this case, send a message to the person. To go to a dialogue with him, open his profile and click on "Write". If a person answers you immediately or simply views the SMS (an eye icon will appear under it), then he is online. nine0003 Click on "Write" to open a chat with a person

Another point: to display the visit time, the chat must be active, that is, the user must write to you at least once.

If only you sent messages, such correspondence will not be considered active.

If the status of the last visit is not visible in Direct

In the settings of the mobile program, you can easily turn off the display of the time when you visited Instagram for the last time. nine0033

But in this case, you automatically lose the ability to track the visit time of other profiles. If you do not see visit times in all correspondence in Direct, go to settings:

  1. Open the page with your profile (where all your photos are located). Tap on the icon in the form of a hamburger - it's on the top right.
  2. Go to the settings - the item at the bottom left.
Run the block with settings

Open the block with privacy and security settings. nine0003 Tap on the item "Privacy and security"

Click on the item for online status.

Click on the "Network status" item

The switch should be blue - this means that it is active, and the time display function is enabled. If it is gray, click on the toggle switch and follow the steps from the previous instructions to see when you visited the "Insta" profile you are interested in.

Activate the time display and go to the "Direct" section again

If you have the time display enabled, but the status in the "Direct" is still not displayed, then the user himself decided to disable this option. nine0033

He will not see your visit time. Unfortunately, this limitation cannot be bypassed. It is necessary to respect the desire of people to hide certain data from strangers. The only thing is that you can collect indirect signs, which we will talk about later.

We look at the time of the last publication and other indirect signs

You can track the time of the last visit to another profile by several signs:

  1. By the date and time of the publication of the last post. Go to the person's profile and open the latest photo/video. Scroll down the post and look at the date and time. Of course, a person could have made a post a long time ago. In this case, the method does not work - you will not be able to find out when he entered after the publication of the last photo. nine0006
The time or date of publication is displayed under the post and comments to it

By the publication of the last story. If the person posted stories, open them through the news feed. Reach the last one - the time when the publication was posted should be displayed at the top.

Stories loading time is at the top - to the right of the profile name

By likes and subscriptions. Open the section with likes (heart icon on the bottom panel). Go to the first tab "Subscriptions". The feed will display all the recent actions (likes, comments, subscriptions to other profiles) of the people you follow, as well as the time when they performed these actions. nine0003 Explore the “Subscriptions” section to find the person you want to know about there. However, the method will work if neither you nor that person has the time display turned off in the settings. Plus, you should have an active correspondence with the profile (he should also answer you in the chat). If Direct turned out to be useless in your case, look for information about the user's actions on his profile page, in the likes section and in stories. nine0003

  • Author: Ekaterina Vasilyeva