How to See if Two Private Accounts Follow Each Other on Instagram
You can confirm whether two private Instagram accounts follow each other only if you already follow both of them: open one account's followers or following list and search the other's username. If you don't follow at least one of the two accounts, Instagram hides that list from you, full stop, and no third-party tool can open it either. SnoopInsta doesn't bypass that wall, but once you do follow a private account, it can watch that account going forward and notify you if it follows someone new, including a specific person you're curious about. Get the iPhone app for that.
- Instagram shows followers and following lists on private accounts only to people who already follow that account.
- The old "Following" activity tab, which once showed a feed of who followed whom, was removed from the app in 2019 (TechCrunch).
- SnoopInsta starts tracking from the day you add a profile. It has no record of follows that happened before that.
How Do You Check if Two Private Accounts Follow Each Other?
You check manually, and only if you follow both accounts. Open the first account's profile, tap "Following," and search the second account's username in the search bar at the top of that list. If it appears, that account follows the other one right now. Do the same on the "Followers" list to check the reverse direction.
This works because Instagram treats you as having permission to view a private account's connections once that account has approved you as a follower. If you follow Account A, you can see everyone Account A follows and everyone who follows Account A, including Account B, as long as Account B's name shows up in a real result (not hidden or blocked from your view).
What if You Don't Follow Either Account?
Then you can't see the answer at all, and no app can get it for you legitimately. Instagram's own rule is that private account content, including follower and following lists, is visible only to approved followers (Instagram Help Center). There's no setting, workaround, or third-party tool that opens a private list you aren't inside of.
This is one of the clearer limits in how Instagram works: the platform was built so that private means private to non-followers, not just "harder to find." SnoopInsta runs into the same wall. If you haven't been approved to follow a private account, SnoopInsta can't see its follower list either, because it checks the same public-facing data Instagram exposes to a logged-in viewer, nothing more.
Is There a Mutual Followers List on Instagram?
Instagram shows a "Followed by" line on some profiles (people you both follow), but that's about mutual friends between you and the account you're viewing, not about whether two other separate accounts follow each other. There's no built-in feature that answers "does Account A follow Account B" unless you can see one of their lists directly.
If you're trying to figure out mutual connections between two accounts you both follow, the closest manual method is comparing their following lists side by side, which only works if both accounts are public, or private accounts you follow. For the related question of timing rather than mutuality, see how to see who followed who first on Instagram.
What's Still Off-Limits?
Instagram removed the in-app "Following" activity tab in 2019, which used to show a chronological feed of accounts your friends had started following (TechCrunch). That feature is gone and hasn't returned. There's also no official API or Instagram setting that reports "mutual follow status" between two arbitrary accounts, and nothing shows you a private account's list unless you're approved to follow it.
If what you actually want is to know when a specific private account (that you already follow) follows someone new, that's a different and answerable question. See how to see who someone followed on Instagram (history) for the honest version of what's possible there.
Where Does SnoopInsta Fit?
SnoopInsta tracks future follows on accounts you already have access to, public accounts or private accounts you follow, and tells you when a later check finds something new. It doesn't open locked lists, and it doesn't backfill history from before you started watching.
- Add the username of the private account (one you already follow) in the SnoopInsta app.
- The app starts watching from that day forward, not before.
- If a later check finds that the account followed someone new, you get a notification, so if you're wondering whether Account A will ever follow Account B, you'll find out going forward, not retroactively.
This only confirms a mutual follow going forward, from the point you start tracking. It won't tell you whether the two accounts already followed each other before you added them, and it can't touch an account you've never followed at all. For your own account's follower questions, like who recently unfollowed you, that lives in SnoopInsta's You tab, not here, since this feature is about watching someone else's account.
FAQ
Can I see who follows a private account I'm not following?
No. Instagram only shows a private account's followers and following lists to people that account has approved as a follower. There's no legal workaround, and SnoopInsta has the same restriction.
Does Instagram tell the account I checked their following list?
No, Instagram doesn't notify anyone when you view their followers or following list, as long as you're doing it through the normal profile pages. The account owner isn't alerted to the check itself.
Can SnoopInsta show past mutual follows I missed?
No. SnoopInsta only sees follows that happen after you add a profile to track. It has no access to Instagram's original follow timestamps and can't recover history from before you started watching.
What's the fastest way to check right now?
If you follow both accounts, open one's following list and search the other's username directly in the Instagram app. That's faster than any third-party tool, since it's live data you already have permission to see.