You have “found” on social networks the profile of a person that you only know “by sight” and that you don’t like very much. She has set her account as private and for this reason, you don’t have access to her personal information, let alone the people who follow her profile. Yet, you are dying to see if this person’s followers include any of your acquaintances.
That being the case, you would like to know how to see the followers of a private account but, so far, you’ve only come across sites that advised you on methods and procedures that don’t work, am I right? Well, then, if you want, I can clear your mind about the functioning of private profiles registered on the most popular social platforms and what are safe and privacy-risk-free solutions can allow you to view them, with the relevant details.
Obviously, I don’t promise you “miracle” solutions, but rest assured that at the end of reading this tutorial you’ll have a clearer idea of what to do and, with a bit of luck, even the possibility of succeeding. Come on, then! Make yourself comfortable, take a few minutes of free time and read the next few lines. I just wish you a good reading!
Preliminary information
You should know that the most popular social networks have various settings to protect the privacy of users, which can be changed at will to hide various details of your profile from other people, such as your posts, photos or personal information (usually, when the account is private, these contents and information are not shown to those who are not registered as “friends” or followers of the account in question).
The settings and parameters regarding privacy are basically similar among all social networks; yet, as I will show you in the next chapters, some platforms allow you to hide more information and content of a profile than others, including followers. In these cases, therefore, to access the information in question you have to resort to some stratagems that – I warn you – do not always give the desired results.
Don’t trust what you read online: several sites and applications, often for a registration or a fee, promise to view all the details of private accounts on various social networks, but these are mostly scams, because, as I’ll explain better shortly (and as is logical), there is no 100% working solution to access information that the owner of an online account wants to keep private. Therefore, I do not recommend you to rely on these solutions.
Always check the reliability of the sites or applications you intend to use by reading any reviews or searching on Google for information on the subject. Having said that, let’s stop the chatter and see what you can do – within the limits of the allowed – to see the followers of private profiles on various social platforms.
How to see the followers of a private account on Instagram
If you’re interested in knowing how to see the followers of a private account on Instagram, the photo social network owned by Facebook, let me explain how things stand.
Setting up a private account on Instagram means that you are also automatically hiding the identity of your followers from anyone who is not approved in turn as a follower of the same account.
That being the case, if you’re wondering how to find out the followers of a private account, the first of the solutions you can apply can only be to send a request to the user you’re interested in to become his follower in turn (to do so, just press the Follow button present on the account’s page).
Alternatively, if you want to keep your identity secret and don’t want to let the user know that you intend to follow them, you can create another Instagram account and send the follow request using the newly created account.
To do this from the app, hold your finger on your profile picture at the bottom right, then tap on Add Account, and from there, tap on Create New Account. Then type in a username and create a secure password. Then continue by clicking on the Complete Signup button and you’re done. See how easy that was?
If you’re acting from your computer, connect to Instagram’s login page and click on the Sign Up heading at the bottom. That done, type an email address, username, first name, last name, and password in the appropriate fill-in fields. Finally, hit the Next button. If you’re using the Instagram app available on the Microsoft Store, the instructions to follow are the same as I just listed.
Once you have access to your new account, you can search for the user you’re interested in as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter
I know, it’s not the “magic” solution you were waiting for, but it’s the only one that potentially works since as you can imagine, Instagram doesn’t allow you to bypass its security measures that easily (and luckily, I’d say!). As another alternative, you could ask a friend who is already a follower of the private account you want to “spy” on Instagram to lend you his smartphone and look at the follower list of your interest via the latter.
How to see the followers of a private account on Facebook
Facebook provides its users with several good options to protect the privacy of the profile (I also told you about them in my guide on how to make a Facebook profile private). However, among these options, there is no specific setting that allows you to hide the identity of followers.
That being the case, you can, in any case, view users following a private Facebook profile in an “instant” way. To do this from the app available on Android and iOS/iPadOS, once you’ve launched it, search for the account you’re interested in by typing its name in the search bar that appears after clicking on the magnifying glass icon at the top right.
Then, click on the Follower item located under the profile photo and you’re done. If you use the browser (or the Windows application), repeat these steps by typing the name of the user with the private profile in the search bar at the top left and then click on the number displayed next to the Follower entry. That’s it!
It’s different for friends, who can be hidden. For more information, read my guide on how to see friends on Facebook.
How to see the followers of a private account on Twitter
Twitter, like Instagram, also allows you to hide the identity of followers of private profiles registered on its servers. Therefore, similarly to what I showed you earlier, even in this case the solutions you have available remain those of making a direct request to become a follower, in turn, of the user you are interested in or, alternatively, send this request from another profile created ad hoc.
In the first case, to ask a user to follow him from the Twitter app for Android, iOS/iPad, Windows 10 or macOS, press the Follow button on the page of the profile of your interest. The same applies if you prefer to act from the browser
If, on the other hand, you prefer to create a secondary account to not reveal your identity, press on your profile photo in the app, then on the icon with the two photos and the item to create a new account. Next, type in a name, an email address you can access or a phone number, and your date of birth, in the appropriate fill-in fields, and continue by pressing the Next button twice in a row.
To finish the procedure, tap on the Sign Up button. Verify your identity by typing in the 6-digit code that should have been delivered to your email inbox or SMS and press the Next button.
Then create a password of at least 8 characters and tap Next again. Then take a picture to insert as your profile picture (or click on the Skip for now option to skip this step) and enter a bio in the appropriate field. Then tap the Skip for Now button again. Great, you’ve just done everything there is to do!
What do you say? Are you using the browser variant of the social network or the computer application? In this case, log out of your current account by pressing the … button at the bottom left and selecting the appropriate menu item. After that, on the initial login screen, press the Sign Up button. Then proceed as seen for the app.
As soon as you have access to your new account, you can proceed to send a request to follow the user whose followers you want to see by following the directions above
How to see the followers of a private account on TikTok
Do you want to know if the private profiles of TikTok, the social network of short amateur video clips, work differently from those we have seen so far? Unfortunately, I must inform you that, also in this case, to view the followers of a user who has made his profile private you will have to proceed by making a request with your profile or with another created for the occasion.
If you choose to adopt the first method, from the TikTok app for Android or iPhone and iPad, press the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the main page and type the name of the user you are looking for. Once you have found it, press the Follow button located below the profile picture.
Do you use TikTok on your browser or on the application installed on Windows? In this case, search for the user using the search bar at the top and, then, after you have opened the page of the profile that interests you, press the Follow button.
If you want to create a new profile from the TikTok mobile app, exit your current account by going to Me, pressing the … button and selecting the appropriate menu item. Then, from the login page, press the Use phone or email item.
Then select the date of birth and press the Next button. After that, type in an email address or a phone number (just tap on the Email or Phone item at the top to choose the account verification method that suits you best) and then press the Next button again.
Continue by completing the CAPTCHA and create a password of at least 8 characters. At this point, type in a username and, to finish, tap the Register button. If, on the other hand, you prefer to create a new TikTok account from the browser or computer application, on the login page press the Use phone or email button.
Then, proceed by typing your date of birth and your phone number (if you want to register with an email address, tap on the Register with email item). Finally, click on the Send code button located at the bottom and type in the 6-digit code that should have come to you via SMS or email, depending on your choice.
After these steps are completed, click the Next button, type in a username and press the Register button. Were you able to sign in with the account you just created? Did you? Great, then search now for the user whose followers you want to view and send them a request as I indicated above.
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