How to Check Instagram Highlights

Instagram Highlights are your profile’s permanent showcase, but figuring out who is actually watching them can feel a little confusing. Unlike regular Stories that have a clear 24-hour viewer list, Highlights work on a slightly different timeline. This guide will walk you through how to check who has viewed your Highlights, how to view others’, and how to use that information to fine-tune your Instagram strategy.

What Exactly Are Instagram Highlights? A Quick Refresher

Before we get into the details of checking views, let's quickly clarify what Highlights are and why they matter. Think of them as curated playlists or mini-albums for your brand, business, or personal account. Positioned directly below your bio and above your main feed, they are one of the first things a visitor sees on your profile.

Highlights are created from your past Instagram Stories. Once a Story expires after 24 hours, you can save it to a Highlight, where it can live forever (or until you decide to remove it). This gives you the power to categorize your best content, showcase your personality, and provide valuable information to your audience long-term.

Common uses for Highlights include:

• About Us/Me: Introduce yourself or your brand.
• FAQs: Answer frequently asked questions to save time and help customers.
• Products/Services: Show off what you sell with demos, tutorials, or user-generated content.
• Reviews/Testimonials: Build social proof with positive feedback.
• Behind the Scenes (BTS): Give your audience a peek into your process.
• Tutorials/How-Tos: Provide educational value related to your niche.

Because they are so prominently featured, understanding how people interact with them is a powerful part of building an effective presence on the platform.

How to Check Someone Else’s Instagram Highlights

Viewing another user's Highlights is the simple part. Instagram designed them to be easily accessible, serving as a quick introduction to an account. There’s no secret trick here - if the account is public, you can view their Highlights freely.

Here’s a simple step-by-step breakdown:

1. Open the Instagram App: Make sure you are logged into your account. You can't browse much on Instagram without being signed in.
2. Navigate to the User’s Profile: You can do this by searching for their username or by tapping their name from a post in your feed.
3. Find the Highlights Section: Below their bio and follower counts, you'll see a series of circular icons. These are the Highlight collections. If an account doesn't have any Highlights, this area will be empty.
4. Tap to View: Tap on any of the circles to open that Highlight. The Stories within it will begin playing automatically in the order they were added.
5. Navigate Through the Highlight:
   • Tap on the right side of the screen to skip to the next Story in the Highlight.
   • Tap on the left side of the screen to go back to the previous Story.
   • Press and hold your finger on the screen to pause the current Story.
6. Switch Between Highlights: When you reach the last Story in one Highlight, Instagram will often autoplay the next one. You can also swipe left or right to switch between the different Highlight collections on their profile.

Can You Watch Highlights Anonymously?

A common question is whether you can view someone's Highlights without them knowing. The short answer is no, not through any officially supported Instagram feature. If you view someone’s active Story within a Highlight (more on this timing below), your username will appear on their viewer list. While certain third-party apps and websites claim to offer anonymous viewing, they often violate Instagram’s terms of service and can pose a security risk to your account. It's generally safest to stick with how the app is designed to work.

How to Check Who Viewed *Your* Instagram Highlights

This is where things get interesting and a bit more nuanced. Can you see who viewed your Highlight? Yes... and no. It all comes down to timing. The view-tracking capabilities for a Highlight are directly tied to the original Story's 24-hour lifecycle, plus an extra 24 hours after that.

The 48-Hour Rule for Viewing Highlight Viewers

Here's the most important thing to remember: You can only see the specific viewer list for a story within a Highlight for the first 48 hours after you originally posted it.

Let's break that down:

• 0-24 Hours: You post a Story. As people view it, you can swipe up to see the full list of viewers, just like any normal Story. If you add this story to a Highlight during this period, that viewer list remains accessible.
• 24-48 Hours: Your Story has now expired from public view and moved to your archive. However, for a second magical 24-hour period, Instagram keeps the viewer list data accessible. If you check that Story within its Highlight, you can still swipe up and see exactly who has viewed it up to that point.
• After 48 Hours: Once that window closes, the viewer list is gone for good. You will be able to see the total number of views the Story has received, but the list of specific usernames will have disappeared. You'll simply see a number next to an eye icon, without the ability to tap and see who those viewers were.

This is why you might look at one Story in a Highlight and see a full list of names, but the next Story in that same Highlight just gives you a total count. It’s all based on when each individual Story was first posted.

Step-by-Step: How to Check Views Within the 48-Hour Window

1. Go to Your Profile: Tap your profile picture in the bottom-right corner of the app.
2. Open the Highlight: Tap the Highlight you want to check.
3. Find the Specific Story: Tap left or right to navigate to the specific Story clip whose views you want to see.
4. As the story plays, look for the text in the bottom-left corner that says “Seen by X” or "Activity".
5. Swipe Up (or Tap “Seen by”): If that specific Story was posted less than 48 hours ago, swiping up will reveal the names of every account that has viewed it so far.

Beyond Individual Views: Using Highlight Insights for Growth

While seeing who viewed your content is interesting, the real value for creators and marketers lies in the broader data. Obsessing over individual viewers is less effective than understanding trends in your content’s performance. If you have a Business or Creator account on Instagram, you get access to useful analytics called Insights.

Instead of just the viewer list, swiping up on a Story in a Highlight (even after 48 hours) can reveal its performance metrics. Look for the small bar chart icon to access Insights. Here’s what to pay attention to:

Key Highlight Metrics to Monitor

• Reach: This is the number of unique accounts that saw your Story. This is your most important metric for understanding how many different people your content touched.
• Impressions: This shows the total number of times your Story was viewed. If impressions are higher than reach, it means some people watched your Story multiple times.
• Navigation Interactions: This is where you find the gold.
  • Back: The number of times people tapped to re-watch the previous Story. A high number of “Back” taps is a fantastic sign that your content was compelling enough to see again.
  • Forward: The number of taps to see the next Story. A high number suggests people are engaged and want to keep watching your sequence.
  • Next Story: The number of swipes to the next person's Story. This is different from "Forward" and can indicate that people were losing interest.
  • Exited: The total number of times people left the Story viewer completely. A large number of exits on a particular slide can signal that the content was confusing, uninteresting, or too much of a hard sell.
• Profile Visits &, Follows: A great metric to see if your Highlight content is effectively driving people to learn more about you or follow your account.

Turning Insights into Actionable Strategy

Don't just look at the numbers - use them to inform your content strategy.

• High number of "Back" taps? You've made something great. Analyze that specific Story. Was it a really insightful tip? A beautiful visual? A funny moment? Make more content like that.
• Lots of "Exits" on a single slide? Figure out what went wrong. Was the text too long? Was it a blurry photo? Did the topic abruptly change? Use this as feedback to improve next time.
• Are your "Tutorial" Highlights getting more engagement than your "BTS" ones? It looks like your audience finds educational content more valuable. Lean into that by creating more helpful guides and how-to's.

Final Thoughts

Checking who viewed your Instagram Highlights is all about timing. You have a 48-hour window from when you first post a Story to see the individual viewer list. After that, you can still access the total view count and, more importantly, the performance insights that help you understand what your audience truly loves.

Keeping your social content organized, from Stories destined for Highlights to videos and feed posts, can feel like a full-time job. At Postbase, we built our visual planning calendar specifically to help you see your entire strategy at a glance. This allows you to schedule content consistently across all platforms so you can focus more on creating those brilliant moments that deserve a permanent spot on your profile.