Why Aren't Some of My Followers Showing on Instagram?

By Clare Edwards

Missing followers can be due to recent account deletions.
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If you can't see all of your Instagram followers when you look at your feed, it's possible your former followers' accounts have recently been deleted. It's also possible that a user has recently unfollowed your account. If you have higher numbers of followers, you may need to use a third-party Instagram viewer service to see all of them.

Deleted Accounts

Users may delete their own accounts at any time. Accounts may also be deleted by Instagram if the user is found to be in breach of Instagram's terms of use. If you're following someone who has their account deleted, you will no longer be able to see any of their photographs in your Instagram feed. Due to a known bug in Instagram's software, however, your apparent number of followers and followed accounts may remain the same.

Private Accounts

Instagram users can set their pictures to "private" if they don't want them to be publicly viewable. If you and another user who has her photos set to private were mutually following each other, and that person has now unfollowed you, you will not be able to see their photographs anymore. Their pictures would no longer appear in your Instagram feed.

Large Numbers of Followers

If you have over 200 followers, Instagram will not show all 200 followers' photos in your feed. Only photos uploaded by the 200 users who you've connected with most recently will be visible. For those following larger numbers of other users, especially if the number is over 1000, Instagram recommends that you use a third-party service.

Third-Party Services

Third-party Instagram viewer services employ Instagram's application program interface to let you see your Instagram photo feed, your "likes" and all your followers' photos on the Web, even if there are over 200 users in your feed. These sites allow you to log in with your Instagram account details, so you can still see photos from users who have set their accounts to private. Examples include Webstagram, Gramfeed and Insta-great.

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