For many people, staying anonymous online is important, and that can apply especially to Instagram. Some of the reasons for this are solid, and others less so, but sometimes it’s important to be able to see someone else’s stories without them knowing you’re doing it.
There are a number of ways to do this, so let’s review. The methods are simple, and they’ll keep your identity hidden, regardless of why that’s important for you.
Three Ways to Stay Anonymous on Instagram:
Basically, there are three ways to see another person’s story and keep your identity hidden.
1. Create an anonymous account
The first and easiest is to use an anonymous account. Fortunately, this is simple to do, as Instagram isn’t fussy when it comes to users creating multiple accounts and using one or more for anonymity.
Start by using the “Add Account” icon in the lower left corner of your Instagram feed. You can skip the profile creation if you’d like, or you can add basic information if you need to do that to keep track of multiple accounts.
Once you’ve added the new one to the app, you can watch stories anonymously. The only thing the Instagram story teller will know is the name you’ve attached to the account, so you should be good to go with your surveillance.
2. Turn on Airplane Mode
The second way to view someone’s story is to use the Airplane Mode feature on your phone. Some people are unfamiliar with this basic capability, so let’s do a quick review.
You can find Airplane Mode in your phone’s settings menu, and activating it involves a simple toggle.
Once it’s on you’re once again good to go, but it’s important to remember that there are limitations to viewing someone else’s Instagram story this way.
The good news is that Instagram preloads several stories as soon as you activate the app, so in theory you can view at least one of these without your identity being seen.
The limitation is that the person you’re surveilling may have posted many stories sequentially, in which case they won’t all be preloaded.
That means that what you can see in airplane mode will be limited, so you should check this mode in settings to see which ones you’ll be able to view.
3. Use a Third Party Website
The third way involves using a third-party website, but this can be risky business.
Some of these sites aren’t all that secure, while others either don’t work or perform poorly, so keep in mind that you may be heading into a potential malware storm or setting yourself up for some frustration when you go to view a specific story.
InstaStories and StoriesDown.com are popular anonymous Instagram viewers. All you need to do to view a specific story is add the account handle on the site’s home page, but it’s important to note that this tactic only works for public accounts.
If you’re looking to view a story from a private account, you may find yourself out of luck using this approach.
If you’re fluent in coding and well-versed in Instagram language and tactics there are other ways to do this, but these are the three basic ways, and chances are strong that one of them will work.
