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How to know instagram friends online


How to hide your Instagram activity or online status

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Maggie Tillman, US contributing editor

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(Pocket-lint) - Instagram offers a number of similiarities to other social media and chat platforms, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Features are constantly added, including options like "Show Activity Status".

If you use Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp - both owned by Facebook like Instagram - you'll know that they show when you're online and last active, or last seen in WhatsApp's case. Instagram does the same.

However, although the "Show Activity Status" option is enabled by default inside of Instagram's settings menu, you can toggle it off like you can on WhatsApp - something you can't do in Messenger.

Here's how to hide your activity status on Instagram, as well as how to tell if someone is online.

How to hide your Instagram activity or online status

Those of you who don't want people to see when you're online in real-time do have the option to turn off Instagram's Show Activity Status feature, though, if you do, you won't be able to see anyone else's activity.

To change the visibility of your activity status:

  1. Open Instagram.
  2. Tap on the Profile icon in the top right corner.
  3. Tap the three lines in the top right.
  4. Tap on Settings.
  5. Click on Privacy.
  6. Tap Activity Status.
  7. Tap the toggle next to Activity Status to turn off your activity status.

Note: Just like in Facebook Messenger, there's no option to disable read receipts on Instagram. Direct messages (DMs) always show as "seen" once recipients have opened them.

Who can see when you're active on Instagram?

Your followers can't see when you were most recently on Instagram. Only people you follow or have previously had direct conversations (DMs) with will see how many minutes or hours ago you were online.

This feature makes sense for Instagram users who rely on the service to chat with businesses or creative professionals and want to see whether they're online or even quickly respond.

How to tell if someone is online on Instagram

There are a few ways to see when someone's online or active:

  1. You'll see a green dot near their username and photo in your Direct inbox.
  2. You'll see a green dot near their username and photo elsewhere on Instagram.
  3. In your direct inbox, you'll see their most recent activity status.

Note: Recent activity status will show as: Active 25m ago, Active yesterday, Seen, Typing, etc.

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Want to know more?

See our Instagram guides for more tips:

  • Instagram tips and tricks: How to master the app
  • 15 secret Instagram tips
  • What is Instagram Stories and how does it work?

Writing by Maggie Tillman. Editing by Britta O'Boyle.

Sections Instagram Apps

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 see on Instagram whether a person is online or not?

Contents:

  • 1 How to find out who is online on Instagram?
  • 2 Instructions on how to find out if a person is online or not
  • 3 How to hide information when I was online?
    • 3.1 Via phone
    • 3.2 Via computer
    • 3.3 Browser version
  • 4 Questions from our readers

Most likely, the reason for this was the prohibition of Insta to watch whom your subscriptions liked. Now, in order to somehow track the activities of the accounts of interest, everyone rushed to check whether a person is online or not. Well, for those who do not know how to do it, we have written instructions.

How to find out who is online on Instagram?

People who are used to using services like VKontakte get used to just going to their friends list, clicking "Online" and seeing a list of people they can chat with now. About the same functionality, willy-nilly, you expect from Instagram, since there are private messages here too. But, alas, there is no such thing in the photo network. Want to chat? First decide with which person, and then follow the instructions that we have described below. If he is not online, then, alas, no luck.

Instructions on how to find out if a person is online or not

Although we cannot see who is currently using Instagram, information on specific people can still be useful. And you can get it as follows:

  1. Authorize.
  2. Open the tab with the news feed, it is hidden under the house icon.
  3. Swipe left to open direct. Also, messages open on the airplane icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
  4. Here, next to the dialog, the time when the person was online, or that he is active right now, will be written.

If you don't have a dialogue with a person, you won't be able to see when he came in. But, if there is a chat, even after the user sets up privacy and unsubscribes from you, you can still see if he is active.

How can I hide information when I was online?

Of course, we can hide this information from users. And this functionality is available both on a mobile device and on a computer. Let's explore both options. And the browser version will be a bonus.

Via telephone

First of all, the social network was created for mobile devices. That is why we will consider this instruction in the first place. The algorithm of actions is as follows:

  • Open the application.
  • Go to your profile. To do this, click on the icon with a person in the lower right corner. Or, if you have several accounts connected, there will be an avatar of the active one.

  • Click on the three horizontal lines at the top right of the screen.

  • Click on "Settings". It is located at the very bottom of the screen.

  • Opening privacy.

  • Click on the "Network Status" button.

  • Just make the switch inactive.

Via computer

If you are using an emulator, just do what I wrote above. Few people use the official Windows 10 app, but there are settings to match.

The instruction is as follows:

  • Install the official application and log in.
  • Go to your page by clicking on the icon with a little man at the bottom right.

  • Here we need a button with a nut. It's next to Edit Profile.

  • This window is divided into two vertical menus. We need the left. We scroll it up to three active switches, and translate it into the inactive position "Show network status".

Browser version

Despite all the limitations of the browser, many people continue to use it for Instagram. And in terms of visibility for other restrictions, the social network does not impose in this case.

Consider the algorithm of actions through the Internet browser:

  • Go to the web version of Instagram and log in to your account.
  • Click on your avatar in the upper right corner and go to your page.

  • Click on the nut next to the "Edit Profile" button.

  • Select "Privacy and Security".

  • The second item will be the notorious "Network Status". We uncheck it.

That's it, now no one will know when you looked at Instagram. Well, how to see a person online or not is also clear. Just go to Direct and look at the numbers next to the dialogue. True, if you have not yet communicated in private messages with a person, then you will not see his activity either. I'll have to write to him first.

Questions from our readers

#1. I went to Instagram, I look, but it doesn’t show me who is online. I wanted to see when a person was online, it was empty .. and so with everyone, what should I do?

All users have either turned on the ban on viewing their status (which is unlikely), or this is a temporary bug from Instagram (most likely). We recommend that you wait a bit, if the problem persists - write to technical support.

#2. The green online indicator on Instagram has disappeared. What to do?

If the person is not online now, the green indicator will disappear, but the time when the person was online will appear next to the conversation. If the time of the last visit is not displayed, then the user has disabled "Online Status".

#3. Can I hide my status only from certain users?

Unfortunately not. Either all users see when you visited Instagram, or no one.

If you have any other questions - ask them in the comments! Also watch videos on the topic.

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    6 ways to find a person on Instagram

    Have you ever searched for a person on Instagram*? For example, a child or his friends, to understand what he is interested in outside the home? Or run a business and want to find out who influences the community in your field?

    You know that these people are on Instagram*, but it can be difficult to find them.
    In this article, we have collected popular and effective ways to search for a person on Instagram*.

    • Search by name and surname;
    • Search by phone number;
    • Instagram photo search*;
    • Search through VKontakte;
    • Search through Pepper.Ninja;
    • Instagram search* by mail;
    • Search for a blocked account on Instagram*.

    Search by first and last name

    The easiest way is to enter the name and surname of the person you need in the search box on Instagram*. The reception can be safely called popular, because tens of thousands of users do it every day. True, only a part of them find what they are looking for.

    More than a billion profiles are registered in the social network, the first and last name should be really rare. Otherwise, you will have to look through hundreds of namesakes and log into the account of an outsider more than once.

    Still, it's worth a try - what if the person we're looking for ends up at the top of the list?

    Go:

    • Turn on the app. Tap on the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen.
    • A search bar will appear at the top, click on it. The category list immediately below it will change.
    • Select "Accounts" - this will limit the search to only people.
    • Write the name in the line. Choose the desired profile from the list below.
    By the way, many accounts can be with someone else's photo. Are you sure that the right one is not among them?

    If you're unlucky and don't find what you're looking for on the first few screens, try a different search option. Or scroll to the end, but the result is unpredictable.

    The person may have been registered under a pseudonym. Then it's useless.

    Search by phone number

    Finding a person on Instagram by phone number is much easier. If the contact is saved in the phone book, the site's search algorithm will instantly indicate it among millions of registered users.

    If Insta is linked to a Facebook account*, subscribers from this social network can be added in the same way as phone contacts.

    The process is simple:

    • Log in to your Instagram account*, to your personal page.
    • In the upper right corner of the screen, click on the three bars - a side menu will open.
    • Select the People of Interest tab.
    • Allow Instagram* to access your phone book, then find the desired contact in the list that appears on the screen.
    It remains to allow Instagram* access to the phone book

    But what if there is neither a number nor a person's name? There is an exit.

    Instagram photo search*

    Instagram* strictly protects user privacy. All images and their digital prints are securely encrypted on Facebook* servers. Insta does not allow you to find the author who uploaded the original image - oh well.

    You can try outside - through Google and its service "Search by Photo".

    Reverse image search is a convenient technology for finding the source of a photo. If you upload an image to the service, similar photos will be displayed with a link to the place of publication.

    If the URL points to Instagram*, you can find the user's profile. Although, this is a rather hopeless undertaking. Rather, it will be possible to find a person in other social networks, where he could leave a link to his Instagram *.

    Just a few steps:

    • Enter the image search service.
    • You will see a camera icon in the search bar. Click on it.
    • Upload or drag the desired photo from your device to the search bar.
    • Study search results.
    There are also Yandex. Pictures and several services for searching images on the web. The principle is the same - add and check

    If this method does not work, go to the next one.

    Search via VKontakte

    Options are possible here. Let's start with the obvious.

    VK profile

    Go to the page of the person you are interested in and click on the "Show detailed information" tab. Often people indicate other social networks so that they can be contacted outside the site.

    What you need can be found in the column "Contact information".

    Invite friends from VKontakte

    You can invite friends from another social network, including VKontakte, to the Instagram* app.

    • Go to your Instagram profile settings*.
    • Select Subscriptions and Invitations.
    • A menu will open in which you need to select the bottom tab - "Invite friends using ...".
    • By selecting VKontakte, you will have two options - publish an invitation on the wall or send a message.
    If your message is not answered, don't despair. Try the following method

    See also: How to view Instagram follow request statistics*: check incoming and outgoing requests.

    The Pepper.Ninja scraper is a service that helps you find customers on social networks. I created a portrait of the client, set up the application - and the algorithm will collect the target audience from all sites, taking into account the specified parameters.

    But we need to find the Instagram account* of the right person. This can be done without any special settings.

    The parser has the required option. It's easy:

    • Sign up for Pepper.Ninja.
    • Click on the big green "Quick Parse" button in the upper left corner.
    • At the top, you can specify a link to the VK profile of the person you need, if you have one, or to the community to which he is subscribed in VK.
    Enter the data you have. For example, a profile in VK
    • Below there will be a filter where you can enter all the information about the person that you have.
    General information block… ...and details
    • You will receive a list of IDs of suitable Instagram profiles* and links to them.

    You can return to the collected list in the "Assignments" section.

    Depending on what you need, you can download links to profiles or only the list ID

    If you know the nickname of a person on VKontakte, try entering it in the Instagram search box*. You might be lucky and he used the same nickname for different social networks. If you don't see a familiar name, you'll have to check each nickname on the list to find the specific person.

    Or not found. Then try narrowing down your search.

    Search Instagram* by mail

    Some people use their first name, last name or nickname in the name of the email. And leave a mailbox as a contact on their page.

    Enter the first part of the email, up to the @ sign, into your Instagram search*. Perhaps you will be lucky.

    The system will show user nicknames that will be at least somewhat similar to the email address

    If none of the listed methods helped in the search, move on.

    Search for blocked Instagram account*

    Nothing helps? Maybe you are looking for an account that you previously blocked. Then Instagram* does not show it in the SERP for you personally.

    To get the opportunity to view the page of a friend or girlfriend again, remove it from the black list in the Instagram settings *.

    Learn more