Straight answer: Instagram removed the public list that showed everyone’s likes and comments back in 2019, so there’s no page anyone can visit to scroll through your liked reels. What still gives you away is the algorithm itself, which quietly recommends reels to your followers because you liked them, and that’s the bit almost nobody explains when you Google this.
The bit people get wrong first
Every time this question comes up in my inbox, the person asking assumes there’s a hidden tab somewhere, a public “Sarah liked this” list that a nosy ex or a rival colleague could open up and browse. There isn’t. Instagram scrapped the old Following activity tab in 2019 after a wave of complaints about the exact worry you have now, and it never came back. So if you’re panicking that your mother-in-law can go to your profile and see a curated list of every reel you’ve hearted, take a breath. She can’t. Not directly, anyway.
What she can do, and what I’ve watched happen to a client in real time, is see your fingerprints on things without you clicking a single “share” button.
A story that explains the real risk better than any settings menu
A client of mine, a fitness coach based in Leeds, phoned me last year in a proper flap. Her main competitor, another PT in the same gym chain, had started liking and commenting on the exact same funny reels my client had liked, sometimes within hours. She assumed the competitor had found a secret list of her likes and was stalking her feed on purpose.
What had happened was simpler and, honestly, more unsettling. Both women followed a lot of the same mutual accounts. When my client liked a reel, Instagram’s discovery system started showing that same reel to people who had accounts in common with her, tagged with a small “liked by” label under the video in the Explore and Reels feeds. It wasn’t a stalking tool. It was Instagram doing exactly what it’s designed to do, which is use your engagement to decide what your network sees next. No one broke into anything. The system just worked as built.
That’s the uncomfortable part most guides skip over: turning off every privacy toggle in the settings menu won’t stop this, because it isn’t a settings problem. It’s a recommendation-engine problem, and Instagram has zero incentive to let you switch it off, because that engagement loop is a huge part of how the app keeps people scrolling. I’ve written before about why Instagram likes still matter for growth in 2026, and the flip side of that same mechanism is exactly why your likes have a habit of resurfacing where you least expect them.
Step by step: locking down what you can control
You can’t make yourself invisible, but you can massively reduce the chances of your liked reels turning up in front of the wrong person. Here’s the exact sequence I walk clients through.
- Step 1. Open Instagram, tap your profile photo, then the three lines top right, then “Settings and privacy.”
- Step 2. Go to “Accounts Center,” tap your profile, then “Activity Status,” and switch it off. This stops your close contacts seeing when you were last active, which is a big part of what makes engagement patterns easy to notice.
- Step 3. Back in Settings, go to “Your activity” then “Interactions” then “Likes.” This screen shows you every post and reel you’ve liked in the last year. It’s private to you, but it’s worth checking regularly so you know exactly what would be visible if anyone did screenshot or share it.
- Step 4. Switch your account to Private under “Account privacy,” if it isn’t already. This won’t hide your likes from people who already follow you, but it stops strangers and unmutual accounts from seeing your profile activity at all.
- Step 5. Go through your follower and following lists and remove or restrict anyone you don’t want having a window into your habits. Restrict is quieter than block, they won’t get a notification, but their view of your account gets limited.
- Step 6. Under “Suggested content” and “Content preferences,” turn off “Show account suggestions on profiles” and reduce “Similar content” recommendations. This won’t eliminate the discovery loop, but it does dial down how aggressively Instagram pushes your engagement out to your network.
- Step 7. Check “Sensitive content control” under Settings and set it to Less, which quietly reduces how much of your activity feeds into borderline recommendation categories.
None of this is a magic switch. It’s damage limitation, and I say that because I’d rather be straight with you than sell you a fix that doesn’t exist.
Save instead of Like, it’s the trick nobody mentions
Here’s the practical shift that changes your risk, not just your settings. Every time you’re tempted to hit the heart icon on a reel, hit the bookmark instead. Saved reels sit in a private collection that only you can see, full stop, no algorithmic label, no “liked by” tag under the video for anyone in your network. You can even organise saves into named private collections, so if you want to keep a folder of workout reels or recipe reels or, let’s be honest, cringe reels you enjoy privately, nobody sees a trace of it.
I switched to this habit myself about eighteen months ago after noticing my own liked content kept surfacing in odd places. Now I save first and only like something publicly if I’m happy for it to be associated with my name, which for a business account matters more than people think, since anything I like as Lilach Bullock the consultant is technically part of my public professional footprint.
Why you’ll never be fully invisible, and why that’s fine
Here’s the part that annoys people when I say it out loud, but it needs saying. Even with every setting locked down, someone with physical access to your unlocked phone, a shared family iPad, or an old logged-in session can open your Interactions and Likes screen and see everything. No app setting protects you from that. If the person you’re trying to hide your reels from is a partner, a parent, or a housemate who already knows your passcode, this is a device and trust problem, not an Instagram settings problem, and no amount of toggling Activity Status off will fix it.
The second uncomfortable bit is that Instagram’s business model runs on your engagement being visible to the network in some form. Meta has said publicly, including in filings referenced by outlets like Forbes, that recommendation systems driven by likes and watch time are central to keeping users on the app longer. That means the pressure is always toward more visibility of your behaviour, dressed up as “helping you find content you’ll love,” not less. Treat privacy settings as a reasonable ceiling on your exposure, not a guarantee.
If you run a business account and this question is less about personal snooping and more about managing your team’s social presence, that’s a different job entirely, closer to setting up brand guidelines and account access rules than fiddling with individual privacy toggles. That’s the kind of thing an AI consultant for small business often ends up helping with once a client realises their whole social strategy needs a proper audit, not just a settings tweak.
What I’d do if I were you
If your goal is peace of mind around one specific person, here’s the realistic order of operations. First, restrict or remove that person from your follower list so they’re not on your mutual-connection map, which is what drives most of the “liked by” style resurfacing. Second, switch your habit from liking to saving for anything you don’t want tied to your public account. Third, turn off Activity Status so your last-seen and story-view timestamps stop giving away patterns. Fourth, accept that a determined person with device access can still find things, and if that’s your actual fear, the fix is a passcode and a conversation, not an app setting.
One more number worth knowing: Instagram reels now get watched over 200 billion times a day across the platform, according to Meta’s own reported figures, which means the recommendation engine behind those views is enormous and constantly learning from every like, save, and rewatch. You are one data point among billions, which is oddly reassuring. Most of the time nobody is watching your specific likes on purpose. The algorithm just occasionally makes it look that way.
Frequently asked questions
Can people see a list of the reels I’ve liked on Instagram?
No, not since Instagram removed the public Following activity tab in 2019. There’s no page or list that other users can open to browse your liked reels. Your own Likes list under Settings, Your activity, Interactions, is private to you.
Does turning off Activity Status hide my liked reels?
It hides your online status and story view history from close contacts, but it doesn’t stop the recommendation system from showing your liked reels to mutual followers under the “liked by” label in Explore and Reels feeds. They’re separate systems.
Is saving a reel more private than liking it?
Yes. Saved reels go into a private collection that only you can see, with no public label attached, whereas liked reels can be surfaced to your mutual connections through Instagram’s discovery algorithm.
Can someone see my liked reels if we’re not following each other?
Generally no, if your account is private and you’re not connected. Public accounts have less protection, so switching to a private account is one of the more effective steps if you’re worried about strangers rather than people who already follow you.
Related reading: Can People See Your Likes on Instagram, and How Do You Check Them and What Audience Insight Tools Reveal About Your Customers.
For the bigger picture, see my full guide to social media marketing.
More on this here: write for us about social media.
