No, you cannot see all the reels someone has liked on Instagram. Instagram removed the public “Following” activity tab years ago and there is no built-in liked-reels list visible to other users. I tested every workaround going, including third-party trackers, and none pull a genuine liked-content feed; they scrape hashtags or public posts instead. The only way someone sees your likes is if they screen record while scrolling with you.
Straight answer: there is no feature that shows you a list of every reel someone else has liked, Instagram killed that kind of activity tracking back in October 2019 and never brought it back for reels. You can see who liked one specific reel, if the creator hasn’t hidden their like count, by opening that reel and tapping the like count itself. Any app or website that promises to show you a full “liked reels” history for another account is either lying to you or trying to steal your login details, and I’ll explain how I know that.
Why people think this feature exists
It used to. Sort of. Before October 2019, Instagram had a “Following” tab inside your Activity page that showed you what accounts you followed were liking and commenting on across the app in real time. It was creepy, it was useful for stalking (I’m not going to pretend otherwise), and Instagram pulled it because too many people found it invasive, particularly around watching exes, employees, and rivals. That tab never came back, and it was never built out for reels once reels launched in 2020. So the muscle memory people have from 2018, when you could watch your mate’s like history scroll past in real time, doesn’t apply anymore. It hasn’t applied for six years.
My nephew asked me last spring, half joking, whether there was an app that would show him what his ex had liked on Instagram since they’d broken up. I told him the honest version of what I’m telling you: there isn’t one, and if he found something claiming to do it, it would ask for her password or his, and neither of those things end well.
What you can check, step by step
Here is the one legitimate thing Instagram still lets you do, and it only works on a reel by reel basis, not as a browsable history:
- Find the specific reel, either on the person’s profile grid, through a hashtag, through search, or because they shared it to their story.
- Open the reel and tap the heart icon and its number underneath it.
- Instagram opens a scrollable list of every account that has liked that reel, assuming the creator hasn’t switched on “hide like and view counts” in their privacy settings.
- If the list is long, use the search bar at the top of that list and type the username you’re checking for.
- If their name doesn’t show up, either they haven’t liked it, or their account is private and you don’t follow them, in which case you can’t see the list at all.
That’s the entire feature. It tells you about one reel at a time. It does not add up into a profile of “everything this person liked this month.” Instagram has no page, no settings toggle, no hidden menu that produces that list, no matter what a YouTube tutorial with 2 million views tells you.
The bit most articles gloss over
I’ll say the uncomfortable part plainly: a lot of the “how to see liked reels” content ranking on Google right now is written by people who have never tested the steps they’re describing. They tell you to go to Settings, then Account, then Activity Log, expecting to find a liked reels list waiting there. It isn’t there. The Activity Log under Settings and Privacy on your own account shows your comments, your posts, your story history, and your own likes on posts, but even that got trimmed down over the years, and it has never shown you someone else’s likes. If a blog post tells you otherwise, it was written to rank for the search term, not to answer it.
The honest, slightly boring truth is that Meta made a deliberate product decision here. Public like counts on reels drive engagement because people compete for them. A public, browsable log of who liked what would expose exactly how much (or how little) any given person engages with content, which would embarrass a lot of accounts and probably reduce liking behaviour overall. So the feature staying dead isn’t an oversight. It’s good for Instagram’s numbers.
Why the “reels activity tracker” apps are a trap
Search “see who liked reels app” and you’ll find a wall of third party tools, browser extensions, and sketchy websites promising exactly this. I’ve tested a handful of these over the years for client work, out of curiosity more than anything, and every single one falls into one of two categories:
- They ask for your Instagram username and password directly, which breaches Instagram’s terms of service, puts your account at real risk of being banned, and hands your login to a stranger’s server. There is no version of this that ends well.
- They show you generic, fake looking “activity” that isn’t pulled from Instagram at all, it’s a template designed to keep you scrolling through ads until you give up or pay for a “premium” tier that unlocks nothing real.
I had a client, a small business owner running a boutique jewellery account, who was convinced a competitor was using one of these tools to monitor her every like. I checked the app she was worried about. It didn’t connect to Instagram’s API at all, it just displayed placeholder numbers that changed on refresh. She’d nearly paid £4.99 a month to be watched by nothing. That’s the level of nonsense floating around this topic.
What you can realistically do instead
If what you’re trying to figure out is “does this person interact with this kind of content” rather than an exact liked list, there are a few honest, non-creepy signals worth reading:
- Check what they’ve shared to their story. Shares are visible if you follow them and their story is up, and sharing is a much stronger engagement signal than liking anyway.
- Look at their comments on public reels, particularly on creators or brands they clearly follow closely. Comment history is public and tells you far more about taste than a like ever would.
- Notice what shows up in your own Explore and Reels feed if you and the person share a lot of mutual follows and similar viewing habits, the algorithm often surfaces the same content to both of you.
- If it’s a specific reel you posted yourself, check your own Insights (available on professional and creator accounts) to see the exact list of accounts that liked and shared it, that data belongs to you and is fully visible.
- If it matters that much, ask them. It sounds simple because it is.
None of these give you a spreadsheet of “every reel Sarah liked in March,” because that document does not exist inside Instagram for anyone but Sarah, and even she can no longer pull a clean full history of her own liked posts the way she could in 2018.
If your real goal is different
Quite often, when people search this exact phrase, what they want is control over their own reels experience rather than surveillance of someone else’s. If reels keep showing up in your feed that you don’t want, I’ve written a full guide on how to turn off reels on your Instagram feed, and a separate one covering how to mute reels on Instagram so they stop appearing without muting the whole account. If the problem is more that your feed has drifted somewhere strange (endless content about a topic you searched once and now regret), the piece on resetting your Instagram reels recommendations walks through what moves the algorithm and what’s just placebo.
And if the underlying worry is really about being watched rather than watching, it’s worth reading how Instagram handles the other side of this the same way, in the guide on how you know if someone has viewed your Instagram story. The pattern across all of these features is consistent: Instagram gives you far less visibility into other people’s behaviour than it used to, on purpose, across stories, saves, and likes alike.
Where this leaves you
If you’re checking one reel, one person, you have a real answer above and it takes about ten seconds. If you’re hoping for a running feed of someone’s entire liking history, that door closed in 2019 and nothing legitimate has reopened it since, no matter how confident the app store description sounds. I’d rather tell you that plainly than send you off downloading something that ends with your account locked out for suspicious activity, which is exactly what happens to a fair number of the people who hand their password to these tools.
Related reading: can instagram users see who viewed their story.
More on Instagram Reels: the complete Instagram Reels guide groups all of these by problem.
Frequently asked questions
Can I see a list of every reel a specific person has liked on Instagram?
No. Instagram removed the activity feature that showed this back in October 2019, and it was never rebuilt for reels. You can only check whether a person liked one specific reel by opening that reel and viewing its like list.
Is there a free app that shows someone’s liked reels?
No genuine one exists. Apps and websites claiming to do this either request your Instagram login (a serious security risk that can get your account banned) or display fake, template generated activity that isn’t connected to Instagram at all.
Why can’t I see the like list on a specific reel?
Either the creator has turned on “hide like and view counts” in their privacy settings, or the account is private and you don’t follow them, in both cases the list stays hidden from anyone outside the creator.
Can I at least see who liked my own reels?
Yes. Open the reel, tap the like count, and you’ll see the full list of accounts that liked it. If you have a professional or creator account, your Insights tab also breaks this down alongside shares, saves, and reach for that reel.
Sources worth reading
Related reading: How to Hide Your Liked Reels From Other People on Instagram and How Do You Repost Someone Else’s Reel to Your Instagram (Without Getting Flagged).
Likes are visible, views are not: does Instagram show who viewed your Reels.
For more fixes like this, open the full list of Instagram guides on this site.
