Are you hoping to view someone’s story on Instagram, but you don’t want them knowing that you’ve viewed it?
This can seem difficult, since you can normally view a list of every account that’s viewed your story.
Thankfully however, there are a few workarounds that still work in 2023, that effectively let you view Instagram Stories anonymously, without the other person being able to know!
In this article, I’ll cover how it’s done, both for public and private accounts.
Let’s get started!
How To View Instagram Accounts Anonymously
Since most Instagram accounts are public, I’ll start with those first.
Currently, there are two different ways to view someone’s story, without your username popping up on the viewers list. One method may be better than the other for your particular use case, so consider looking over both of them!
1. Use An Instagram Story Viewer
Perhaps the most popular way to secretly view someone’s Instagram story, is to use a website designed for this purpose.
With a story viewer website, you simply plug in the person’s username whose story that you wish to view.
It pulls the posts directly from Instagram, and lets you view them (or in many cases, even download them) directly from your browser.
Pretty neat!
A few popular Instagram story viewers that still work at the time of writing are IgAnony.com and InstaStories.watch.
There is one problem, however.
These websites are not affiliated with Instagram in any way, and may be scraping the posts rather than using Instagram’s official API. What this means is that Instagram may find ways to block these sites from working in the future.
In fact, many of the websites that previously worked for viewing Instagram stories no longer work, or throw up an error when you try to use them.
So, this may not be a perfect long-term solution.
While I will continue periodically checking and updating the suggested sites listed above, you may also consider the second (more reliable) option I’m about to share with you!
2. Create An Anonymous Account To View It On
The second way to view someone’s Instagram story without them ever realizing it’s you, is to create an anonymous Instagram account.
Instagram allows you to have multiple accounts, so you may wish to create a new one that isn’t tied to your old one in any way.
This means not using the same profile picture, using a different name, and making it impossible to tell who is actually behind the account.
The benefit of using this strategy is that it’s much easier to switch accounts than to plug someone’s username into one of the story viewing websites.
Additionally, because this strategy will always work, whereas the sites linked to above may go down or stop working.
You can find a full guide on how to create an anonymous Instagram account by clicking here.
While it does take a few minutes to set up a new account, you can feel safe knowing you’ll be able to view their story as much as you want, without them ever knowing it was you!
What If You’re Trying To View A Private Account?
So far, both methods have been listed have been for public accounts, that do not require you to be an approved follower in order to view their story.
But what about private accounts?
Unfortunately, due to the way private accounts work, this is much more difficult.
Only an approved follower can view the stories posted by private accounts. This means that story viewing websites don’t work, and you will need to get approved as a follower if you make a new, anonymous Instagram account.
Alternatively, you could temporarily change your username and profile picture, and simply hope that the person doesn’t go to your profile to discover it’s you.
The only other way to view their story is to have someone who is an approved follower view their story, screenshot or screen record it, and send it to you.
While this won’t send any sort of notification to the person who posted it, it can also be considered a breach of privacy.
So, you should only view someone’s story if they actually intended to allow you to see it. With public accounts, this is a given. With private accounts, the situation becomes much more fickle.
Conclusion
Sometimes, you want to view someone’s story on Instagram without them knowing that you’ve seen it. Regardless of your reasoning, you have several options available to you.
By using a website specifically dedicated to this, or making your own anonymous Instagram account, you can safely view someone’s story without your username ever appearing on their viewers list.
I hope that you’ve found this article helpful, and you’ve managed to see the story that you were looking for.
If you have any other questions about Instagram or Instagram stories, please ask them below and I’ll be happy to help.
Wishing you the best,
– James McAllister