Can You Still Track Someone’s New Follows on Instagram in 2026?
Yes, for public accounts. What changed with Instagram’s follow lists on September 9, 2026, what IGDetective tracks now, and how to tell if a tracker is accurate.
What changed on September 13, 2026: Published: what changed on September 9, 2026, what IGDetective tracks now, and how to judge any follow tracker.
By Steven Duncan, founder of IGDetectiveHow IGDetective checks what it publishes
Key takeaways
- Since Instagram’s September 9, 2026 change, the order of someone’s following list no longer shows who they followed recently.
- IGDetective’s paid plan tracks new follows and new followers again since September 12, each dated the day we first see it.
- Unfollow tracking is currently unavailable; we would rather show nothing than an unfollow we can’t confirm.
- A free eligibility check shows which features work for any public account before you pay.
- Judge any tracker by how it dates follows and whether it still claims someone’s exact follow order.
Yes, for public accounts, but no longer in exact order. Since Instagram changed how follow lists work on September 9, 2026, we know of no tracker that can reliably show the order someone followed accounts in. What you can still see is who a public account followed recently, dated the day it was first seen. IGDetective’s paid plan has tracked new follows and new followers again since September 12, 2026, for eligible accounts. Unfollow tracking is currently unavailable.
Full disclosure: IGDetective is our product. This is our own account of what happened to follow tracking in September 2026 and what works now.
This page is for anyone checking whether follow tracking still works after Instagram’s September 2026 change, including IGDetective customers. It covers follows, followers and unfollows on public accounts; for how Instagram sorts its lists, see Instagram following list order.
The short answer
| What you want to know | Possible since September 9, 2026? |
|---|---|
| Who a public account followed recently | Yes, with a tracker. On IGDetective that is the paid plan, for eligible accounts, each follow dated the day it is first seen. |
| Who recently followed a public account | Yes, on the same terms. |
| The exact order of someone’s follows | No reliable way we know of. Where an account sits in someone’s following list no longer says when they followed it. |
| The exact time of a follow | No. Instagram does not show follow times for other people’s accounts. |
| Who unfollowed a public account | Not on IGDetective right now. Unfollow tracking is currently unavailable. |
| Anything about a private account you don’t follow | No, and no legitimate tool can. |
| Stories, posts, likes and comments | Yes, unchanged. |
What changed on September 9, 2026
On September 9, 2026, Instagram changed how follow lists work. The Following list on someone else’s profile in the app was already a ranking. After the change, the order stopped meaning anything about time for follow trackers too: an account near the top is not a recent follow, and the same list can come back in a different order the next time.
We have not seen an announcement from Instagram, and there is no setting to change it. Instagram documents how it ranks Feed, Stories, Explore and Reels (Instagram Ranking Explained), but it has published nothing about this change to follow lists. The Date followed sort on your own Following list only ever covered accounts you follow yourself (Adweek), and it never appeared on anyone else’s profile.
For follow trackers, this mattered more than it sounds. A tool that kept running as if nothing had changed would, from that day on, show old follows as new ones.
What we did
- September 9. Some follows shown for tracked accounts that morning were not new. We paused follow tracking the same day rather than keep showing follows we could not stand behind, removed those entries, and put a notice on the dashboard and on the pages where you buy follow tracking. Stories, posts, likes and comments kept updating as usual.
- September 10 and 11. We rebuilt follow tracking so each new follow is dated the day we first see it.
- September 12. New follows and new followers came back for tracked accounts, each dated the day we first see it. We added a free eligibility check the same day, so you can see what works for an account before you pay, and the pause notice came down.
- September 13. We updated our pages to say plainly that unfollow tracking is currently unavailable, and published this update.
We did not fill the gap by guessing. A follow that happened while tracking was paused can show up dated the day tracking resumed for that account, not the day it happened. If you see a cluster of follows dated September 12, that is the likely reason.
What IGDetective tracks now
Follow tracking runs on the paid plan. The eligibility check and our other free tools stay free.
- Recent follows. Accounts a tracked public profile started following, each dated the day we first see it. A follow can take a few days to appear.
- Recent followers. The same, for accounts that started following them.
- Unfollows. Currently unavailable. We would rather show no unfollows than ones we can’t confirm, so the Unfollows tab says so instead of guessing.
- Stories, Story Archive, posts, likes and comments. Not affected by the change, and updating as before.
What "first seen" means: the date on a follow is the day it first showed up for us. It is not a follow time from Instagram, and we don’t put follows from the same day in order.
Check an account before you pay
Not every account can be tracked for follows. The eligibility check on our homepage and on the Instagram follower viewer takes a public username and shows each feature for that specific account:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Available | Works for this account today. |
| Starts after first scan | Works, and begins once you start tracking the account. |
| In progress | Not ready yet for any account. Unfollows sit here for now. |
| Not available | Can’t be tracked for this account. |
Accounts come back "Not available" for follows when they are private, when their following or followers list is very large, or when Instagram limits the list. The two sides are checked separately, so an account’s following can be trackable when its followers aren’t. The check is free, needs no Instagram login, and the account is never notified.
What comes next
The eligibility check looks at each account, and each side of it, separately. New features will show up there first, so you see what applies to an account before you pay.
Unfollows are the feature we most want back. They return only when we can confirm them, and this page will say so the day they do.
How to tell if any follow tracker is still accurate
A checklist for any tool, ours included:
- It dates follows by when it saw them. Ask what the date on a "new follow" means. After September 9, 2026, an honest answer is the day the tool first saw it, not the moment it happened.
- It doesn’t sell someone else’s follows as an exact order. If a tool lists another account’s follows from newest to oldest and calls that the order they happened, ask how it knows.
- It has a dated note about September 2026. A tracker that says nothing about the change and still promises the same results as before deserves a closer look.
- It tells you what it can’t track before you pay. Private accounts can’t be tracked by any legitimate tool, and some public accounts can’t be tracked fully. A good tool says which before it charges you.
- It confirms unfollows or doesn’t show them. A false unfollow alert does more damage than a late one, so ask how a tool confirms an unfollow before it alerts you.
- It never asks for your Instagram password. No legitimate tracker needs your login to watch a public account.
What didn’t change
- Public accounts only. A private account you don’t follow stays private.
- No Instagram login and no password.
- The accounts you track are never notified.
Instagram has not shown follows as they happen since it removed its Following activity tab in October 2019 (TechCrunch). Trackers have filled that gap since, and after September 9, 2026 they fill it with dates rather than an order. For how the in-app lists are sorted, see Instagram following list order, and for what we collect and never see, our methodology page.
The bottom line
You can still track someone’s new follows on Instagram in 2026, for eligible public accounts, dated the day they are first seen rather than in exact order. To see what works for a specific account, run the free eligibility check on the homepage.
Related
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you still see who someone recently followed on Instagram?
Yes, for public accounts. Since September 9, 2026 the top of someone’s following list no longer shows their recent follows, so you need a tracker that follows the account over time. IGDetective’s paid plan shows recent follows for eligible public accounts you track, each dated the day we first see it. No legitimate tool can track a private account.
Did Instagram change the following list in September 2026?
Yes. On September 9, 2026 Instagram changed how follow lists work. Someone else’s list in the app was already a ranking; since the change, follow trackers can no longer show another account’s follows in the order they happened either. We have not seen an announcement from Instagram. The Date followed sort on your own list only ever covered accounts you follow.
Can any app show someone’s Instagram follows in chronological order now?
We know of no reliable way to do it for someone else’s account since September 9, 2026. A tracker can tell you which follows are new and roughly when they appeared. An app that lists another person’s follows from newest to oldest and calls it the exact order should be able to explain how it knows.
Is IGDetective working after Instagram’s update?
Yes. Follow tracking was paused on September 9, 2026 and came back on September 12. On the paid plan, new follows and new followers are tracked for eligible public accounts and dated the day we first see them. Stories, posts, likes and comments were never affected. Unfollow tracking is currently unavailable.
Does IGDetective still track unfollows?
Not right now. Unfollow tracking is currently unavailable since Instagram’s update on September 9, 2026, and we are investigating solutions to bring it back. Recent follows and recent followers still update on the paid plan for public accounts the eligibility check marks Available or Starts after first scan.
Why is a new follow dated later than when it happened?
The date on a follow is the day it first showed up for us, not a time from Instagram, which does not show follow times for other people’s accounts. A follow can take a few days to appear, and follows made while tracking was paused may be dated the day tracking resumed for that account.
Which Instagram accounts can’t be tracked for follows?
Private accounts, accounts with a very large following or followers list, and lists Instagram limits. The two sides are checked separately, so one can work when the other doesn’t. The free eligibility check on the IGDetective homepage shows which features work for a public username before you sign up.