Yes. Sending a follow request to a private Instagram account notifies the owner right away: they see your username on a request with Accept and Decline buttons. Public accounts work differently; following one does not trigger that same request alert. There is no setting that lets a follow request to a private account go out quietly.
- The request shows up in the owner's Activity feed, and as a phone alert if their notification settings allow it.
- Canceling a follow request after you send it does not undo the fact that a notification already went out.
- Instagram's old "Following" activity tab, which once showed what accounts you follow were liking or following, was removed in 2019, so it is not a workaround for this (TechCrunch).
What happens when you request to follow a private account?
Instagram sends the account owner a notification as soon as the request is sent, with your username and profile photo attached. They can accept, decline, or leave it pending; nothing you do afterward removes that initial alert, since it already reached their notifications tab.
A few things worth knowing about that process:
- If they accept, you become a follower and can see their posts going forward.
- If they decline or ignore it, you stay in a "requested" state and get no indication either way, and no further notification is sent to them.
- If you cancel the request yourself before they respond, the request disappears from their pending list, but Instagram does not retract a notification that already fired.
- Blocking the account afterward removes you from their follower list but does not reach back and un-send the original alert.
What does Instagram actually show about this?
Instagram shows the account owner who requested to follow them, through the in-app notifications tab and, depending on settings, a push alert, as described in Instagram's Help Center. What it does not show is a timestamp breakdown of exactly when within that moment the request landed, and it does not show the requester anything about whether the owner has looked at the request yet.
Public accounts are a separate case. Following a public account adds you to their followers list and can produce a general "started following you" entry in their activity feed, but it is not the same accept/decline flow as a private account, and there is no equivalent request notification to cancel.
If what you actually want is to know when a specific follow happened in sequence, that is a different question answered in more detail in how to see when someone followed someone on Instagram.
What still doesn't work?
There is no setting, app, or workaround that lets you send a follow request to a private account without the owner being told. People sometimes assume turning off their own notifications hides the request from the other side; it does not, since the alert is generated and shown on the recipient's account, not the sender's.
The removed Following activity tab is the other dead end people search for here. Before 2019, it showed what accounts you follow were liking and following elsewhere on the app. Instagram pulled it, and nothing on the platform replaced it (TechCrunch). If you are trying to piece together someone's follow history after the fact, how to see who someone followed on Instagram history covers what is and is not possible there, and how to see who followed who first on Instagram covers the ordering question specifically.
Where does SnoopInsta fit?
SnoopInsta does not change whether a follow request notifies anyone, and it does not let you follow a private account without them finding out. What it does is a different, narrower job: it watches an account you already have access to and tells you about new activity on their side, without you sending any request at all.
- Add the username, public or a private account you already follow, inside the SnoopInsta iOS app.
- The app watches that account starting from the day you add it; it does not pull follows from before that.
- You get an email, or you can run Check Now in the app, when a later check finds a new follow added after you started tracking.
The person being watched is not notified. This avoids the exact problem this page is about: you are not sending a follow request, so there is no accept/decline alert generated on their end.
FAQ
Can I cancel a request before they see it?
No. The notification is generated when the request is sent, not when it is accepted. Canceling removes the pending request from their list, but it does not undo an alert that already reached their notifications tab.
Does unfollowing someone notify them?
No. Instagram does not send a notification when you unfollow a public or private account. The other person may notice if they check their followers list, but no alert is pushed to them.
Can I see who follows a private account without being approved?
No. Instagram only shows a private account's follower list to the owner and to approved followers, and SnoopInsta does not unlock that either. It only reports new accounts that profile goes on to follow, not who follows them.
Will I know if they accepted my request?
You will see them move from "Requested" to appearing as someone you follow in your own following list, and you may get a general notification depending on your settings. Instagram does not provide an exact timestamp for when the accept happened.